


The One Thing I Hide

by moondansr



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:32:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moondansr/pseuds/moondansr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since Sam started becoming more adult Dean has had a thing for him. It is his deepest secret and he's terrified Sam will find out about it and hate him for feeling the way he does. When Sam leaves for college and Dean doesn't make it in time to say goodbye it looks as if the two of them may never speak again. Then Sam runs into trouble. He went out with a vampire and the only person he can think to call for help is Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The One Thing I Hide

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the [Wincest Big Bang](http://wincest-bigbang.livejournal.com/).
> 
> I would like to thank [containerpark](http://containerpark.livejournal.com/1525.html) for the amazing artwork and [verucasalt](http://verucasalt123.livejournal.com/) for being my beta. 
> 
> If you enjoy my work, or even if you don't, please consider clicking on the link below and reading a bit about [verucasalt](http://verucasalt123.livejournal.com/). In addition to what you read there she is currently recovering from a car accident and could use all of the assistance she can get for her return to college. If you can't help, you can always link to her story too and try to help out that way. Thank you for your consideration! - Moondansr
> 
>  
> 
> [Help verucasalt my amazing beta!](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/back-to-school-for-mom)

Dean watched his father meander over the bridge trying to attract the ghosts attention.  He tried to keep his mind on the job, the hunt.  Sammy kept creeping in though.  Lately as Sam had become more developed, taller, stronger, he’d begun to have very strange thoughts.  He looked at Sam’s broad shoulders and his mind imagined what it would be like to wake with his head lying on one of them.  Seeing Sam naked only lead him to contemplate his size, what a large length his brother must be hard.  Then there was Sam’s ass, so firm he wanted to put his hands on it, maybe even lube up the hole and slide into it.

The ghost was almost on his father when he surfaced.  “Behind you!”  Dean shouted.  They had to find the bones, but first they needed to get a good look at the face.  The ghost could be of eight different women who had all committed suicide on the bridge after being offended in some way by a middle aged man.  His father turned around, and Dean gave him a moment to look before he shot the thing, momentarily dispelling it.

Then they were in the thick of things as his father retreated, and the ghost tailed them much longer than expected.  The worst part of it was that a part of Dean was angry with the ghost for interrupting his fantasy, and that was so wrong.  Actually the whole thing was wrong.  He shouldn’t be thinking those things about his brother, and he knew it.  He was wrong, just wrong.  There was also the detail that he was on a job, his father was depending on him yet he was getting caught up in fantasies instead of paying attention.

“What the hell happened back there?” his father demanded as the ghost receded, unable to follow them further.

“Nothing, what do you mean?”  Dean knew what he meant though.  He should have noticed the ghost sooner, given his father more time to look.  The ghost hadn’t been moving in quickly.  He’d just been out mentally, thinking of Sammy’s finer qualities.  He looked down to cover the slight flush that just had to be visible.

“I mean why didn’t you warn me before she was practically touching me?  Do we need to go back to the basics?”

“No Sir,” Dean quickly responded.  He just had to stop thinking about Sammy, his firm ass, strong chest, large length.  There was nothing on Sam he didn’t want to get his hands on, nothing.

“Where the hell is your head?”

“Nowhere!”  Dean looked at his father, appalled that he had drifted off like that, right in front of him.

“It’s somewhere, maybe you’ve got it stuck up your ass.  If you do you had better pull it out.”  His father was staring at him expectantly and Dean searched his mind for an acceptable response.

“I won’t let it happen again.”

“You’d better not!”

Dean was saved from whatever tirade might have followed by the ringing of his cell.  He pulled it out and saw Sammy was calling.  Sammy.  “Hey,” he said answering the call right away, “everything okay?”

“Yeah, it is!  You aren’t going to believe this but… are you sitting down?” Sam asked.  He sounded really excited.

“Yeah, I’m in the car with Dad.”

“Oh, great, put me on speaker then and I’ll tell you both at the same time.”

“Sure,” Dean wasn’t sure he should though.  Sam and his father had really different ideas of what was good news and bad news sometimes.  He looked over at his father.  “It’s Sammy, he wants to tell us something.”  He switched over to speaker.

“Hey Dad, how’s the hunt?” Sam asked, and Dean looked over at his father.

“It could be better.”  Their father shot a glare at Dean before returning his eyes to the road, “We should be home soon though.”

“Great, but this can’t wait.  I was just opening the mail and I got that letter I was hoping for.  I’ve been accepted at Stanford this fall!”  Sammy said it like it was the best thing to ever happen to him.  Dean supposed in Sam’s mind it was.

For Dean it was one of the most painful things that could happen.  He wanted what was best for his brother but he didn’t want Sammy to go far away and stay there, to not be at the hotel when he came back from hunts.  He knew what he was supposed to say, he just couldn’t get himself to say it.

“No, you can’t go!”  His father’s harsh voice, saying just what he wanted to say but knew he shouldn’t, startled him.  Dean looked over and saw tense white knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel as his father stared at the road his face ashen.

“I’ll go if I want to.”  Sammy immediately went into defensive mode.  “I’m not a kid anymore and you can’t treat me like one!”

“Sammy, Dad is just trying to say that it’s dangerous out there and we can’t watch over you in a place like that.”  Dean was always trying to prevent or break up fights between the two, sometimes he did okay, sometimes not.

“It’s Stanford, people go there all the time and survive it.  They live normal, healthy, long lives in normal families who do normal things.  I’ll be fine, I’ll just be at college which is somewhere most high school graduates consider going.  I’m one of them, and you aren’t talking me out of it or forcing me not to go.”  Sam wasn’t having it.

“If you go, then don’t ever think of contacting me again,” their father said with a note of finality in his voice.

“You don’t mean that,” Dean said quickly.

“I damn well do!” his father said.

There was some silence on the other end of the line before Sam said slowly, “What about you Dean, are you also never talking to me again?”

“No, I…”  What did he say?  The right thing.  He had to reassure Sammy, allow him to grow up and have his own life.  “I’m happy for you Sammy.  I know this is what you really wanted.”  He didn’t sound happy though, and he didn’t know a way to make himself sound that way.

“Great,” Sammy sounded sarcastic, “fine, I’ll see you when you get back and I’ll give you the date I’m leaving, if you even care.”  Then he hung up the phone.

*

Sam had delayed packing all morning and still he was alone in the hotel.  No Father, no Dean, no one had shown up and they knew he was leaving that day.  He tried not to let it get to him.  There was no getting around the pain.  He had expected at least Dean.  He’d hoped for his father too, but where in the hell was Dean?

Lately Dean had been weird though, not distant exactly but jumpy.  He would be in the middle of giving Sam a hug and he would jump away like he’d been stung or something.  Sam had no idea what to make of it.  As he folded his clothes and packed them his mind went over some of the incidents trying to make them make sense.

One night the two of them had been getting ready for bed and Sam had wandered into the bathroom while Dean was getting out of the shower.  Dean had almost fallen back into the shower on his butt.

“You okay?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, sure, just didn’t expect you to be there.”

As if Sam hadn’t been walking in on that sort of thing all their lives and it wasn’t like Dean had just hit puberty or something.  Dean was the older one.

Shaking his head as he surfaced from the memory Sam went into the bathroom to gather his toothbrush and stuff.  His eyes caught on the mirror and he stared at his own hazel eyes.  What did Dean see there that had changed things?  He kept saying all the right things but Sam didn’t think he meant them.  He didn’t feel like Dean meant them.  Then there was this.  There was still time, Dean could still show up.

It took Sam two hours to pack as he was moving at a snail’s pace and even when he was done he lingered, drinking a glass of milk as he wrote his goodbye note, tore it up and replaced it with a new one.  If they didn’t want to ever see him again fine.  He could handle it if they could.  That had to be it, right?  Dean had always been closer to their father.  He must agree with him and that was why he hadn’t come to say goodbye.

Sam set his cell phone down on top of the note.  His hand lingered on it for a while as he thought of never seeing Dean again and his heart ached.  “Dean.”  Where was he?  He could have at least called.  Swallowing and tasting salt as he did, Sam shook his head.  He was going where he wanted to go and he wasn’t letting anyone hold him back, not even Dean.  His hand slipped from the phone which he left on top of the note as he walked out of the hotel room closing the door firmly behind him.

*

The wheels of the Impala squealed as Dean parked it in front of the hotel.  His father would have blown a gasket if he’d seen the way Dean was driving but he didn’t see.  As far as Dean knew his father didn’t even know he had the car.  He jumped out of the car, slamming the door and running for the hotel room.

“Sam!  Sammy?!”  Rushing through the door he looked around.  The place felt empty.  It didn’t look a lot different but before his eyes landed on the cell phone and the note under it Dean knew.  He was too late.  His shoulders slumped, then he slammed the door so hard it made a loud cracking sound.  “Fuck!”

He should have taken the keys while his father was still awake and not worried about the consequences or taken the bus, or rented a car, something.

“Sammy,” he whispered, going over to the phone and picking it up.  Why had Sammy left his phone?  How was he supposed to call him if his phone was sitting here?

Dean & Father,

I had hoped that you would at least show up to say goodbye.  I guess you won’t forgive me for making my own decision and following up on it.  That’s fine.  I won’t expect to hear from you ever again.

I’ve left my phone.  I figure it wasn’t really mine to begin with so you can do what you want with it.  Since we’ll never be speaking again, I won’t need it.

Love,  
Sam

That was the note.  Dean & was hastily added in beside Father, as if Sam had originally intended to say something different to Dean and changed his mind.

Had Sammy seen the way Dean had been looking at him lately?  Maybe he had noticed Dean’s interest and it made him uncomfortable.  Dean couldn’t blame him.

Thack.

Dean’s eyes focused and he saw a splatter of wetness on the note.

Thack, thack.

It was the sound of tears falling on notebook paper.  Dean wiped at his eyes impatiently and stood up.  Why the hell was he crying?  He walked restlessly around the hotel room, stopping at the fridge and opening it to pull out a beer.  A half empty gallon of milk glared at him from inside of it and he closed the fridge hard enough that it rattled.  He should have been here.

Fuck his shit ass father!  Why had he worried what Dad might think when he’d needed to be here for Sammy, now Sammy was gone and he didn’t even think Dean cared.

Dean popped the lid off his beer and drank it down fast, trying to pack his feelings away where they belonged.  Deep, deeper, much deeper than that.  He wiped at his face again, hating the tears almost as much as he hated himself in that moment.

If only he could get over this obsession he had.  Sammy must have seen it and run away from it.  Of course he wanted to go to Stanford.  He’d wanted that for a long time but he would have waited.  He should have known that Dean would come.  Dean always came.  “I’ve never not shown up.”

His words fell on an empty room and they sounded small, insignificant.  Dean drank more beer and then he took the bottle and threw it against the wall.  He didn’t even really feel it when some of the glass scratched his face and arm but he found the sound of it shattering, comforting somehow.

*

Sam was trying to work on an essay, but his mind kept going to Dean.  Was he alright?  What was he hunting now?  Was their father taking care of him?  It was like an endless cycle and he didn’t know how to stop it.  He slammed his pen down on his desk and his roommate, Wayne looked over.

“You okay?” Wayne asked.

“Yeah, sorry.”  Sam stood up and stretched.  “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“You wanna talk about it?”  Wayne moved his chair so it was easier to look at him, his brown eyes on Sam.  “Might help.”

It was a nice gesture and Sam didn’t have any reason not to talk to Wayne, but he shook his head.  He wasn’t ready to share this with anyone.  “Thanks, but I just need to clear my head.”  He offered up a smile that he hoped was sincere and Wayne just shrugged.

“Sure, see you later.”

Sam left the dormitory and took a deep breath of fresh, hot air.  California was still plenty hot even as they wound their way into October.  He was used to that.  A lot of his life had been spent in southern states, not all of it, of course.  He remembered more hot nights than cold ones though, trapped in a hotel room with Dean.  How many times had they been in a place where the air broke down?

Sam smiled at the memory of Dean taking one apart once.

“What are you doing?” Sam had asked.

“Fixing the air,” Dean replied, parts lying all over the place, a full array of screwdrivers spread around.

“You know how to fix it?” Sam asked, sitting down away from the parts and watching his brother.  Dean had a way with electronics and cars.  Everything Sam knew about those things he’d learned from Dean.

“Nah, but it’s broken, so I can’t make it worse.  The hotel doesn’t have anyone to look at it until Monday.  Odds are I’ll figure it out by then.”

Yeah, Sam remembered that time well.  It had been sweltering and there was only one window in the whole place, not a fan in sight.  Dean had fixed the air conditioner though, in half a day.  He looked off towards a palm tree.  Seeing so many of those around, mixed with the normal trees was still weird.  Dean.  He missed him.  When he thought of the way he’d left, cutting Dean off, it felt so wrong.  He shouldn’t have done that.

It wasn’t like he could go back though.  Sam paused and turned off towards the edge of campus.  There were always people around, it was one of the things he found difficult to adapt to.  For so long it had been him and Dean against the world.  Little rooms with just the two of them, hot plates, mini-fridges and cans of ravioli or boxes of cereal.  More recently though, Dean had been around less and less.

There was another thing too, if Dean really wanted to find him it wasn’t like he was hiding.  For someone like Dean finding Sam was as simple as an internet connection and a little bit of time.  He was using his own name.  Stanford files weren’t a matter of high security.  Even if they were Dean could get in if he wanted to.

A part of Sam knew that Dean might be honoring his desire not to be contacted.  He had been the one to leave the cell when Dean hadn’t shown up and maybe Dean had been coming.  Dean had probably been on his way, right?  When had Dean ever not been there for him?  Still, if Dean wanted to talk to him he knew how to find him.

Sam entered a cafe and ordered a fruit smoothie.  He was feeling a little better again as he headed back towards campus, back towards the dorms.  If Dean really wanted him he would show up.  There was no need to keep mulling it over.  He frowned as one last worry surfaced, what if Dean couldn’t do that?  What if he was injured or dead?

He took a drink of the cold smoothie, feeling it all the way to his stomach.  No, there was no reason to think that way.  Dean was damn good at hunting.  He wasn’t like Sam, he wanted to do it and he’d honed his skills.  Dean was fine and he was out there.  Sam wanted to get away from that life and he wasn’t going to let his feelings for his brother suck him back in.

*

As Halloween approached it became harder and harder not to think of Sammy.  Like it wasn’t bad enough that Sam entered three out of every four of Dean’s dreams these days, now he was thinking of him during daylight hours too.  The way Sammy couldn’t ever get into trick or treat, the way he hated costumes and everything about the holiday, kept hitting Dean again and again.  He couldn’t see a pumpkin or a corn stalk without thinking, Sammy.

That was why he was in his father’s room, tapping away on the laptop, looking through Stanford files.  Samuel Winchester was easy enough to find.  His dorm number, the address of it, even a cell number.  Dean was in the middle of writing down the number when his father entered the room.

“What are you doing on my computer?” his father asked mildly as he came over and glanced at the screen.

“Just, uh, looking something up.”  He hadn’t heard him soon enough and there was no time to cover his tracks, so Dean didn’t even try to hide it.  His father would figure it out eventually.

“You should have your mind on the job, not on that.”  His father walked away from the laptop a look of disgust on his face.  “If you don’t focus, you’ll end up getting yourself killed.”

“Don’t pull that with me, I know better.  You act like you don’t care but you do.”  Dean wasn’t sure what made him lose his patience but his mouth just kept on running.  “If you hadn’t told him to never talk to you again I wouldn’t have to do this.”

“He left us, it wasn’t the other way around.”  His fathers tone was final, but there was nothing final about the situation.

“He just wants to live a normal life.  Sammy doesn’t want to hunt, he doesn’t have to want to hunt.  I’m here to help you so why not let him live his own life?  When did that mean we couldn’t talk to him anymore?”

“I know what living like that means.”  His father’s voice was hard.  “Do you think I don’t know?  Ignoring what’s out there, that’s how your mother ended up dead.”

“Everything always comes back to Mom with you,” Dean stood up, frustrated.  “We’re talking about Sammy here, okay?  Not Mom!  He deserves his own chance.  We can’t do anything about Mom, she’s dead but Sammy’s still alive!”

Somehow he’d ended up nose to nose with his father.  A moment later his father’s fist connected with his nose.  There was blood, and pain but nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Never talk about your mother that way, ever!” His father roared, then he stalked out of the room his face rigid and pale.  Mom really was dead though.  He hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true.

Dean grabbed a towel and went to the nearest mirror to check out his nose.  He was fairly sure it wasn’t broken, so he went about stopping the blood.  A bandage and several beers later he was in front of the laptop again, staring at the screen.  He knew where Sammy was, but did he really have any right to disturb him?

This was not his fantasy Sammy, who wanted him like he wanted Sam.  This was the real Sammy who wanted a wife, kids, a house, a good job.  Sammy didn’t have room in that life for a brother who wanted to get in his pants.  Dean swallowed hard, when had he become so sick?  What was wrong with him?  It occurred to him that maybe he should see a shrink but fuck that.  There was no way he was talking about this to some stranger.

Dean took one last look at the screen and imagined Sammy at college, parties, girls all around.  No, not Sammy, just books, notebooks, pens.  He might even have a laptop, yeah, that was Sammy, hard at work.  He didn’t need Dean interrupting that, causing problems.  Hell, if he did need Dean, he knew where to call.  Dean hadn’t changed phones since Sam had left.  Even if he had, Sam knew how to get in touch.  He could hack as well as Dean could, and he knew how to find someone if he needed to.  Dean sighed and shut the window, he cleared the cache, he erased all traces of the path he’d taken to get the information.  Lastly he took the paper he’d begun writing on and crumpled it into a ball.

Sammy was in a better place and he was happy, he had to be.  What right did Dean have to pull him from that in any way?  He had to let go.  He had to let the real Sammy go.  After all, he still had his fantasy and fantasy Sammy would just have to do.

*

It’s just a date.  That was what Sam kept telling himself over and over again as he ruffled his hair in the mirror.  There was no such thing as just a date for Sam though.  Dean was the one who did casual well.  He sighed and tried again.  It’s just a date.

Kelly was a beautiful girl though, with hair so blond it was almost like spun platinum.  She wore make-up but she kept it subtle and it was easy to see that her beauty was natural.  He didn’t know a whole lot about her.  They sat next to each other most of the time in literature class though and she had a nice smile.  Once in a while they would joke around about a book, poem or something the professor said.  So Sam had asked her out.

He gave up on worrying about how he looked.  If she liked him then it wouldn’t matter, he looked as good as he got.  It was at times like these when he wondered about his hair, but he wasn’t one to fuss with it.  Yeah, there was no use in being fake.  Enough of the Sam he presented here was a lie.  What was he going to do, tell everyone his family raised him to hunt monsters?  That wasn’t happening.  Checking for his wallet he headed out the door to pick up Kelly.

Kelly opened the door on his first knock.  “Too eager?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”  Sam laughed, feeling more at ease.  At least they were nervous together.  “I thought we could check out that movie you mentioned last week and grab dinner at the Chopper, first or after depending on when your hungry.”  The Chopper was a deli style place that specialized in salads.  It was close to campus and Sam liked it.

“After, I’m not very hungry yet,” she said, ducking in and then coming out with her purse.  She wore a red sundress and he realized that she didn’t seem to have any tan lines.  He tried not to think about that too hard.  As they walked to the theater they talked about classes.  He found out she was a Literature major, he told her about his dream of becoming a lawyer.

During the movie Sam held her hand and she leaned on his shoulder.  At dinner they talked more, mostly she talked about her family.  She had three brothers and two sisters all living in the area.  Sam admitted that he wasn’t talking to his family, they hadn’t wanted him to go to Stanford.  For a while they went back and forth about how bizarre it was for any parent to not want their child to go to college.  Then they decided to go for a walk because neither of them wanted to go home.

“You’ll probably talk to them again someday though, right?” Kelly asked as they walked, holding hands, over a wooden walkway.

“I don’t know.”  Sam stopped to look over the railing.  He leaned on it and pointed out the moon, “It’s almost full.”  His mind was on all of the creatures that came out on full moons or seemed to become especially strong during them.

“Yes, I love full moons, new moons too.  The darkness of a new moon feels safe to me somehow,” she said, leaning close to him.  Sam put his arm around her, wondering if he was moving too fast.  She seemed happy though so maybe not.  He looked into her brown eyes and leaned in to kiss her.  It seemed like the perfect moment and she evidently agreed, leaning in and pressing her body close to his.

Sam felt his pulse racing.  It had been a long time since he’d been in this position, months.  His last girlfriend had broken things off for college.  She didn’t think long distance relationships worked and he hadn’t fought it very hard.  Deep down he’d known that if she didn’t think it would work, it wouldn’t.

Kelly ran a hand over his back, pulled out of the kiss slowly and burrowed her head in his neck.  “Sam,” she murmured and then he felt something off.  He wasn’t sure what.  There was just a moment of sudden panic in which he pushed her away and then, about to apologize, he saw her fangs.

“You… you’re…” she was a thing of some sort.

“Don’t be scared, Sam.  I only want to turn you so we can be together…” her eyes gleamed, “forever.”

“No thanks,” he was backing away in earnest now, wishing he had a weapon or two.  “What are you?”

She laughed, “Can’t you tell?  I’m a vampire.”

“Extinct!”  Sam responded.  What did you do to stop a vampire?  Did he really have to stop her?  Maybe she would just leave him alone?

“Not so much,” her eyes narrowed a bit, “but that is a rather odd reaction for the son of a mechanic.  I think there are some things you haven’t been sharing with me Sam Winchester.”

“Same for you.  Look, why don’t we just go our separate ways.  I have no interest in being anything other than a normal human being and you probably want to live.”

“Are you threatening me?”  She tilted her head, now looking very curious more than anything else.  “Don’t be silly.  I won’t let you kill me, I want to have you as my mate.  There doesn’t need to be any violence involved.”

“Except for the part where you kill me?  No, I don’t think so.  I’m not letting you turn me Kelly, no interest.”  His stomach sank.  She didn’t seem likely to just let go.

“You seemed pretty into me a few minutes ago.”  She approached and tried to touch him but Sam jumped back again and his back thumped against the wall of a shop.

“No, I’m not.”

“Sam, I can see you’re scared, but there’s nothing to be afraid of.  It hurts, sure, but the pain is brief.  Then I’ll help you become strong.  Just think, the two of us together, forever.”  She closed in on him, he tried to run to the side.

Kelly wrestled with unnatural strength and Sam could feel himself losing the fight but this was his life, and he had no backup, no Dean.  With a strength he didn’t even know he had, Sam kicked her into the railing on the other side of the wooden walkway.  It cracked and she fell several feet to the sand.  He could run but Sam thought vampires might have a speed advantage, so he moved forward and cracked a board off the splintered railing.

He jumped on top of Kelly, hitting her as hard as he could with the wood as well as the force of her body.  She hissed as the breath went out of her.  Sam kept the board and ran.  Maybe she was injured enough that she wouldn’t catch up with him.  Either that was true, or she just made a decision to let him go for the moment.  In his locked room Sam breathed hard as he paced.  

What did he know about vampires?  They were extinct, that was all.  His father would know.  As his breathing slowed he knew what he had to do.  He needed to get online and do some research.  There was no other way he would be able to sleep.  

It was three in the morning.  Wayne had come home and gone to sleep.  Sam had a shopping list for the morning and he wore a rosary around his neck.  Ten bottles of holy water sat by his bed.  He had whittled a stake.  He had no idea if any of it would actually work.  That might have been why he was tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep.  Finally he sat up and pulled his cell phone out from under his pillow.  He wouldn’t call his father, he just couldn’t.  Closing his eyes he made a decision and dialed without even opening them.

“Hello?”  It was Dean, Sam would know his voice always.  He wasn’t sure there was anyone else he knew like that.

“Dean?”

“Sammy!”  There was a pause then and Sam could almost imagine him reigning himself in.  It was too late, Sam felt the warmth of being missed all through his body.  Strange, how much it meant.

“It’s Sam,” he corrected into the moment of silence.

“Sure,” Dean said in that way that meant he wasn’t really listening.  “You forgot your phone.”

“You know I left it.”

“Yeah.”

Silence followed and Sam knew he was the one who needed to fill it.  He swallowed.  “You know anything about vampires?”

“They’re extinct.  You trying to make a Halloween costume?” Dean asked.

“Fuck you,” it felt so good to talk to Dean again.  Briefly, he wished he’d made the call sooner.  “If I tell you they aren’t extinct…”

“What’s going on over there?  You need me to drive out?”  It sounded to Sam like Dean might actually already be packing.  He could hear the sound of movement and material against material like clothes going into a bag.

“No, I don’t know, maybe.  I went out with this girl and… she says she’s a vampire but I guess she might have lied.  I don’t know why she would, anyhow…” Sam would have gone on but Dean interrupted him.

“It’ll take me three or four days.  Try holy water, you took a knife with you, right?  Use it Sammy, take care of yourself until I get there, okay?  If you hack her into enough pieces it has to slow her down some.  Tell me you have a gun.”

“Dean, I didn’t bring any of that…”

“Well get one!”  Then as the phone clicked closed Sam could have sworn he heard Dean swear.  Of course Dean would think he was being stupid but a lot of people lived without that stuff.  Sam set down his phone and looked over at Wayne’s bed.  His roommate was still fast asleep.  Sighing he put his head on his pillow and finally Sam slept.

*

Dean was packed before he even considered what to tell his father.  Dad would know what to do about vampires, but if he said he was going to see Sammy he didn’t think it would go over very well.  On the other hand Dad was the one who had told him vampires were extinct.  One more moment of thought and Dean nodded, going out into the main room and pausing to look at his Dad.

Empty bottles were all around his father and his eyes were closed.  Dean started to leave without saying anything.

“Where are you rushing off to in the middle of the night?”  His father was suddenly alert.  He drank a lot, but it never seemed to make him slow, just angry.

“Got a job, I’ll be back in a couple weeks,” Dean said, edging towards the door.  The less he said the better, he thought.

“Yeah?  Need a hand?”

“Nah, I’ve got this one, Dad.”

“Where’s it at?”

“California,” Dean said, watching his father’s face close off.

“Take care of yourself, Dean,” his father leaned back and closed his eyes.  “I might have to take off while you’re gone.”

“Sure, I’ll catch up eventually.”  First he offered to come along then he said he might have to leave?  Dean shook his head.  “See ya.”  Outside, he tossed his stuff into the Impala and started driving, fast.  There was no telling exactly what Sammy had gotten himself into.  It might not even really be a vampire.  They would figure it out.  What shook him wasn’t that Sammy was in trouble.  Well, that did shake him a little but what had really gotten him was Sammy’s voice.

Dean had been close to Sam for a long time and he knew when Sammy was scared.  He had a different note to his voice, a way of speaking that said it all, and when Sam had said Dean, it hadn’t been the, “oh, it’s Dean” voice, or the, “hi Dean” voice, it had been the, “oh my god help me right now Dean” voice.  Even if Sammy had told him not to come he would have.  He couldn’t have not.

As he drove, Dean considered how great it had been to hear Sammy’s voice again.  His daydreams, as well as his nighttime dreams, just didn’t measure up to hearing that voice.  It was funny, he could turn a girl upside down and inside out in no time, but all Sam had to do was say his name and he came undone.  What the hell was wrong with him?  It was like he was in love with his little brother, the only person in the world he had always had to be strong for and the only one who made him feel weak.

“Sammy.”  He’d missed him so much.  His mind went over the details of their life together for hours before he forced himself to stop trying to make sense of his feelings.  They were brothers and he wished that he could just go back to the time when everything was that simple.  He couldn’t, and that was the way it was, simple.  So he had to make this simple too.  He would take care of business and then he would leave.

Of course, what he wanted was completely different, but as long as Sam was safe, he knew he needed to leave.  Sam wanted normal and nothing about Dean’s feelings were normal.  Dean nodded to himself.  He would get in there, take care of the stuff that was bothering Sam, then get out and take his new memories of his brother with him.  Sammy didn’t have to know anything more than that.

*

Sam was pretty desperate for a good night of sleep.  His homework was mostly not done.  It was Sunday, he’d called Dean Friday night.  The earliest he expected to see his big brother was Monday night.  That would be three days.  He’d hung garlic on the door, which Wayne  was tolerating for the moment.  They’d had a somewhat tense discussion about it, as well as the rosary Sam now kept on at all times, even in the showers.

“You have some sort of religious revelation?” Wayne had asked.

“No, I just… it was my grandmothers.” Sam answered.

“That her garlic hanging on the door too?”

“No, not exactly, its just a… um… family tradition.”  It sounded lame.

“Look, if that makes you happy, whatever.  You’re acting weird though, Sam.  Just try not to scare away my girlfriend or I’m getting a new roommate, got it?”

Yeah, he got it, he still got it.  His fingers paused on the keyboard at the sound of a scratch near his door.  Sam turned his head to look at the door.  He was familiar with the sound of a lock being picked.  He moved to pick up his stake as the door burst open.  Kelly was looking cheerful.

“Surprise!  Hi there Sam, did you think I gave up on you?”

“Not exactly,” Sam replied.  She had the garlic around her neck.

“You know what I really love?  Garlic bread,” Kelly said.  “It looks to me like you might be a fan too.  Do you know how to make it fresh?  One of my sisters has a fantastic recipe for it, she’s Italian you know?”

For the first time it occurred to Sam that she might not be talking about the normal kind of sibling.  It might not be just one vampire he needed to worry about.  He threatened her with the stake.  “Back off, Kelly, I’m not interested in what you want to give me.”

Her face fell into a pout, “I think you’re making too hasty of a decision here.  I didn’t choose you without putting a lot of thought into it you know?  Vampires mate for life.”

“I know where to put this,” Sam said, swallowing hard.  Instead of answering him Kelly lunged at him.  Sam put the stake through her heart and blood splattered everywhere.  She didn’t even falter, nor did she make a sound until she spoke.

“A stake through the heart doesn’t kill me.  It does hurt though, so it seems like I owe you.”  Her fangs came into view, “Time for payback, Sammy,” she said and then she slammed him into the wall, her teeth grazed his skin and a moment later she was off him, flying into the wall on the other side of the room.

“No one calls him Sammy but me,” Dean said, swinging a hand axe and nearly taking her arm off.  Her teeth receded and Kelly ran out of the room.  Dean turned hazel eyes on Sam who found he was paralyzed somehow.  “Sammy, you okay?”

All he needed to do was say yes, but he couldn’t.  If he said he was okay, Dean would chase after Kelly, maybe take care of her right then.  “I…” Sam slumped to the floor, his neck tingling where the fangs had scraped him.

“Shit!” Dean was at him then, cutting along the tooth scrapes and applying pressure, making him bleed, then wiping it away.  He opened and dumped out a bag across the bed, weapons everywhere.  Then Dean was pouring vodka on the open wound to sterilize it.  Sam winced and found that he was able to move again.  Had he just been scared or was there something on her teeth that had done that to him?

“I… I’m fine,” Sam managed.  Seeing Dean was such a relief.  It was like having him there made him feel certain things would be okay.  He hated that, the way he trusted his brother beyond reason to always make things right.  How was he ever supposed to become independent if he was always looking around the corner for Dean to show up and save him?

*

Sammy had gotten even sexier in the time they’d been apart.  He was taller too.  Dean was starting to think his little brother was never going to stop growing.  He had to go through Sammy’s stuff to find bandages, but he was carefully taping them over the cuts on Sammy’s neck as he felt himself finally start to relax a little.

“Well, at least you picked a hot one,” he teased.

“Yeah, real hot.  Regular people all around me and I decide to ask out the psychotic vampire.”  Sammy reached up and touched his neck, his hand brushing against Dean’s.  For a moment Dean was stuck staring into Sammy’s hazel eyes, then he managed to look away.

“She’s a monster, of course she’s psychotic.”  Dean moved away a bit, distancing himself enough to stop his body from getting carried away with its physical reactions.  Too much dreaming about Sammy wanting him.  It made him even more sensitive to his brother’s presence.  He needed to stay cool, take care of things and get out.

“Yeah, well I hope you know something I don’t, because nothing I found seems to work.  Garlic, crosses and stakes through the heart are out.  I’ve seen her out during the daylight so that’s a myth and, shit,” Sammy paused and looked at the bottled water by his bed, “I forgot to try the holy water.”

“Nearly cutting off her arm seemed to slow her down,” Dean said, “I say next try, we douse her with holy water and start hacking.”

“It’s worse than that.  I think there are five more of them and possibly another two who created them, in the area.”

“Christ,” Dean shrugged, they would just have to deal with it.  “If we can take them all down we will.  They’re our responsibility now, can’t let them make any more or you’ll have a real problem on your hands.”

“I already have a real…”

The door opened then, and both Dean and Sam looked over.  The young man who came in looked pretty average to Dean, brown hair and brown eyes, it was his general reaction that bothered Dean,  “Hey, I see the garlic’s gone… holy fuck!”  The boys eyes went over the blood spattered room, then they went to Dean and there was a flicker of recognition, like he knew Dean somehow before his eyes went to the scattered weapons, “What the hell?”  He started backing towards the door.

Dean was still watching this new addition to the room when Sam started doing his thing, that thing he was so good at.  “Halloween!”  He said with a relaxed smile.  “You know it’s only a couple days.  My brother dropped by with some fake blood and a few costume ideas.”  Dean noticed a few moments of thought pass through the boy’s eyes before he seemed to decide to relax.  It was more like he was considering his reaction than Sam’s words.

“Shit, man, don’t do that to me.  You scared me half to death.  That blood looks so real.”  Now he was looking all around.  “That’s some amazing fake blood, where did you get it?”

“I don’t know her name,” Dean answered and Sam shot him a glare.  Dean shrugged, “I’m talking about the girl in the shop, she’s a real babe.”

“That’s my brother for you, I’m sure it was a costume shop of some sort.”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean expanded, “they have one hell of a vampire, very realistic.  This is supposed to be vampire blood.”

The guy had a quick look of amusement, followed by confusion.  The confusion seemed put on.  “You never said you had family that was local.”

“I don’t, not really.  Dean just happened to stop in.  I don’t really like Halloween so he’s always teasing me about it.  Dean this is my roommate Wayne, Wayne, this is Dean.”

Dean shook Wayne’s hand, still watching him.  He didn’t like the idea of Sammy sharing a room with Wayne.  The guy didn’t seem real, he had a secret of some sort, and if Dean was right, it was a pretty big one.  Only someone with a secret would consider their own reactions so carefully.

“You guys gonna clean this up, or are you leaving it for decoration?”

“We’ll clean it up,” Sammy said with a slight grimace that amused Dean, “right away.”

“Sure,” Dean said, “then you can help me find a good spot to stay while I’m in town.”  A place with two beds because until he figured everything out, Sammy was not sleeping in the same room with Wayne.  He didn’t know what was up with the guy but something was definitely off.

*

Sam heard Dean moaning in the other bed.  “Sammy,” Dean said in a way that made Sam shiver, it was so raw and desperate.  Sam didn’t think he had ever heard Dean say his name like that before.  It was like he needed Sam instead of the other way around.  Wasn’t it always the other way around?

Sam crossed the hotel room and pressed his hand gently against his brother’s forehead.  It was beaded with sweat.  Could he be having a nightmare?  What was it about?  “Dean?  Hey, Dean.”  Sam shook his shoulder and Dean’s eyes flew open, he was breathing hard as he stared at Sam.

“Is something wrong?” Dean asked, sitting up and looking around.

“You…” Sam wondered if he should have left him asleep after all.  Dean wouldn’t let him sleep in his dorm room, he didn’t trust Wayne, and since they’d settled into a nearby hotel, Dean had been drinking more than Sam had ever seen him consume.  Their father drank like that, but not Dean.  He wasn’t at all used to seeing it in Dean.  “I think you were having a nightmare or something.”

“Oh,” Dean swallowed and shook his head, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No.”  Then Dean got up and went to the bathroom.  He shut the door firmly behind him.

That was the other thing.  Dean had become more private, where they used to leave the door half open most of the time, he always shut it firmly.  Sam sighed and went back to his own bed.  He might as well get up.  He had classes in a couple hours and plenty of homework to catch up on still.  They hadn’t decided on their next move yet as far as Kelly went, and it just felt like they were spinning their wheels in a lot of ways, when it didn’t feel like he was watching his brother spiral into some sort of drunken misery he didn’t understand.

Sam went for a jog and returned with breakfast, tossing it on the small hotel table in front of Dean, who appeared to be drinking a glass of whiskey.  “Dude, seriously?”

Dean looked up.  His green eyes seemed slightly watery and Sam had no idea what to make of that.  “It’s noon somewhere, Sammy,” Dean said eyeing the bag.

Sam shook his head as he sat down across from his brother and took out his yogurt and fruit leaving Dean’s grease laden breakfast sandwich in the bag.  “We need to talk.”

“Yeah, gotta come up with some sort of plan for that vampire bitch.  I know.  I was thinking maybe I could follow her this weekend, get a sense of where she goes and who she knows.  We need to know if there are others and if there are, how many.”  Dean sounded pretty clear even when he drank.  It was deceptive, and it made Sam uncomfortable because it reminded him of their father.

“I’m still trying to find something useful online, but that wasn’t what I meant.  I meant we need to talk about you.  You’re drinking too much, Dean, and something’s bothering you.  I get the feeling it has to do with me.  Look, if this has to do with how I left…” he had been wanting to apologize for that for a long time but Dean didn’t let him.

“It has nothing to do with you.  If I want to drink, I’ll drink.”

“Yeah, I get that, but I’m worried about you.  It isn’t healthy and something is haunting you.”

Dean slammed his hand down on the table.  “Nothing is haunting me!”

He was angry because he was feeling defensive, Sam was pretty sure of it, just like he felt fairly certain that Dean had known exactly what he’d been dreaming about when he’d woken up.  They’d always had their secrets but Sam couldn’t remember a time when they’d been so distant.  Was it all his fault for going to school?  Was this really what he wanted?

“Dean, what the hell is happening to you?  Are you trying to turn into Dad?”

Dean swiped his breakfast sandwich off the table.  “I’m nothing like Dad, he’s a stronger man than I’ll ever be.”  Then he started eating, leaving Sam with a new puzzle.

Dean thought he was weak?  When had his older brother ever been weak?  Sam was the weak one and Dean was strong, always strong.  He was the one who kept things going, who taught Sam to never give up, that there was always something worth pushing on for.  Their father was just a stubborn drunk, who kept mourning a death from eighteen years ago.

“Where do you even get that from?”  Sam asked, “Did something happen while you were on a job?”

“Nothing happened.”  Dean didn’t sit down again, but he did stay near the table, lifting his drink and gulping it down between bites of the sandwich.  At least he was eating.  Sam wasn’t sure he ever ate except when Sam brought him food.  He hadn’t seen any sign that Dean did.  All he ever saw were empty bottles.

“Something happened, something is bothering you, so if it’s not the way I left, and it’s not a job, what is it?  Tell me!  I can’t stand watching you fall apart like this.”

“I’m not falling apart, I’m fine Sammy.  Aren’t you going to be late for classes if you don’t get your shower?”

“Fuck that,” Sam looked at his watch and saw Dean was right, “you’re more important.”

They stared at each other, and for a moment Sam thought maybe, just maybe, he had him, then Dean turned away.  “No, I’m not.  You better get going.  I’m heading out, see if I can find anything interesting on the public records about Kelly.”  Then he just walked out with a quick, “See you tonight.”

Sam took a very hot shower, hoping it would fight the tension, but it didn’t get him anywhere.  He had to do something about Dean, but how was he supposed to do anything when he had no idea what the problem was?

*

Dean stared at his brother, who was fast asleep.  They had argued that morning because he wouldn’t tell Sammy what was going through his head.  His decision not to explain himself remained unchanged.  How could he tell Sammy that he wanted to fuck him?  There was no way.  Feeling his body react to the thought of wanting Sammy, he sat up and threw on some clothes.  Then he went looking for something to drink.  He’d found that if he drank enough he would fall asleep.

On the other hand, that morning Sam had woken him from an especially embarrassing dream.  He’d been with Sam and Sam had been the one on top.  He’d dreamed of that sort of thing a lot actually, enough to make him really wonder about his sexuality, and other things.  What made him want to be penetrated like that?  It was like a need to be out of control, and that was the last thing he wanted.  All his life Dean had fought to be the one in control, to be in charge.  The things he dreamed of when it came to Sammy made no sense.  Then to be woken by the person he was dreaming about.

Dean shook his head, giving up on his hunt for alcohol in the room.  Evidently he’d had everything he’d bought.  He was going to have to go out and if he was going out maybe a bar would be a good idea.  There would be women at the bar, and he could pick one up, go home with her, fuck her, maybe take the edge off.  Convinced he’d found the answer to his problems in that thought, Dean picked up his keys and left the room.

The bar Dean found was heavily populated.  A lot of the occupants were college kids, no doubt.  He didn’t have an issue with younger women though.  In fact a lot of them looked fantastic.  As he got the drink he’d been wanting, and scanned the bar, Dean saw no less than seven good bets.  Then he saw someone else.  His mind went straight from pleasure to work.  It was Wayne.

Wayne was at the back of the bar, making his way to a door.  Dean downed the remainder of his drink, left money and followed.  It was sad, but he wasn’t missing this opportunity.  The back door led to an alley and Dean had to ease it closed again, head to the front, leave the bar, and come in from the other side of the alley to hear anything, which meant that he missed a great deal of the conversation.

“No, he wants the boy watched,” the woman with Wayne said.  “If you can’t watch him then find a new host.”

“I can watch him, just not while he’s sleeping in the hotel with his brother.  The only way I could get closer would be to possess Dean,” Wayne said.

“If you can manage it, then do it.  Sam is the important one, his brother doesn’t matter.  Do you understand me?”

“Of course.”

Dean drew back, trying to make sense of what he’d heard.  Possession, hosts, watching Sammy, who were they or more specifically, what were they?  Actually he thought he might know, and that was what scared him the most.  The yellow-eyed demon who had killed their mother had been in the room with Sam.  It could be that, for some reason, that thing wanted Sam watched, because from what he knew about demons, they needed hosts and got them using possession.

“Contact me as soon as you have new information,” the woman was saying.

“Yes, I’ll call right away,” Wayne replied, then Dean heard footsteps coming his way and he split.  They wanted to use him to get to Sammy, the first thing he needed to do was find out how to prevent demonic possession.  After that, he needed to tell Sammy just what his roommate really was.

*

Dean was passed out on his bed with one hand dangling onto a half empty bottle of scotch, and the other hand over a book open against his chest.  Sam moved in to look at the book.  It said, “How to Ward off Demons.”  What the hell?

It was getting more and more difficult to make sense of what was going through Dean’s head.  In that moment Sam finally decided to swallow his pride and call the only person he knew who might understand what was wrong with Dean, his father.  Sam crept to the door and slipped out of the room as quietly as he could.  The last thing he needed was Dean figuring out what he was doing.

He’d emptied every bottle in the room the day before and somehow Dean had gotten more to drink.  Dean must have gone out in the middle of the night after Sam was asleep.  That was disturbing, then there was the book on demons when they were clearly not dealing with a demon.  Kelly showed no sign of that, besides, dealing with demons… Sam didn’t think they were ready for that.

Outside, leaning against the Impala and watching the hotel door, Sam dialed his father’s number and listened to the phone ring and ring.  Then it went to voice mail.  Should he leave one?  What was the use of calling if he didn’t?

“It’s about Dean,” he said without introduction.  If his father didn’t know his voice then that was his problem, wasn’t it?  “There’s something wrong with him and I need to talk to you.  Call me… please.”  He hung up.  It had taken a lot to leave that message.

For some reason he stood outside for nearly half an hour waiting for a call back.  It was stupid and of course he didn’t get one.  He didn’t get one all day, or all through the next night and there was no way he was calling again.  At five in the morning he was on the internet looking for a different number.  It was the only person he could think of other than his father who might give a shit.  He didn’t even know if Dean was in contact with Bobby, but maybe he was and Bobby would know about whatever was eating Dean alive.

At seven o’clock he was carefully sliding Dean’s phone off of his bedside table and going through the contacts.  He felt like a moron for trying the internet when the phone had been right there the entire time, as he programmed Bobby’s number into his own phone.  When he was done, he carefully returned the phone to it’s exact prior position, although with Dean drinking as much as he was Sam wasn’t sure he would know it was in the wrong position even if it was.

Outside he called the number and waited.

“What?” Bobby’s voice said a few rings later, “And it better be important I ain’t even had my coffee yet.”

“Hey Bobby, it’s Sam,” when Bobby remained silent Sam reiterated, “Sam Winchester.”

“I know who you are.  I’m waitin’ ta see what you called for,” Bobby replied, roughly.  Sam felt the affection behind the words though.

“I, uh, wanted to talk to you about Dean.  There’s something wrong with him and Dad’s not answering his cell so I thought you might know the story.”

“Heard you went to Stanford,” Bobby said, confusing Sam again.

“Yeah, I did.  I still am, Dean’s here too helping me with a little problem.”

“How little?”

“Well actually I guess it’s pretty big.  I went out with a vampire, and she wants me to be her mate so she’s trying to turn me,” Sam glanced at the door to the hotel.  It hadn’t occurred to him to call Bobby about that, but he would probably have some decent advice.

Bobby gave a long, low whistle and Sam could almost feel him shaking his head.  “And you’re calling me about your brother?”

“Yeah, well, yeah…” his brother was the part that worried him most.

“He didn’t get bit, did he?”

“No, nothing like that.  This isn’t related to the case I don’t think.  I mean he’s drinking Bobby, a lot.”  He thought it over and decided to go ahead and say, “Like Dad drinks.”

“Lots of people get drinking problems when they hunt, son,” Bobby said.  “There anything else?”

“Well, he’s not eating, and he keeps shutting doors on me.  I’ve tried to talk to him about it but he refuses to talk.  This isn’t just a drinking problem, Bobby, it’s worse than that.  Something’s eating him and he won’t share.”

“Some things are private.”  He heard Bobby take a deep breath and then he heard liquid sloshing into a cup on the other end of the line.  Sam found himself wondering if it was coffee or something else.  Bobby could be a pretty strong drinker himself.  He’d lost his wife in a bad way before he started hunting.  Sam didn’t know the details though, Bobby was quiet about it and he wasn’t looking for revenge exactly, like their father was.  “You boys have always been real close.  Sometimes it worried me a little, knowing how much you were left to raise each other and Dean always felt responsible for ya.  I don’t know Sam.  I haven’t seen Dean in some time but, maybe he’s just struggling to redefine himself, with you in college and all.”

“If that’s what this is about he’s doing a damn bad job of it.  Bobby, he’s a mess.  I’m really worried and he’s having these nightmares.  You didn’t hear about any jobs going wrong or anything, did you?”

“For Dean?  No.”

“Hm,” Sam looked down at the ground.  He had no idea where to go from there.  Did he really have to just let it go and hope Dean sorted it out?  “You think I should leave him be?”

“From what you’ve said I get the feeling he told you to do just that,” Bobby said.  Sam heard him take a deep drink of whatever he’d poured.

“Yeah, he did.”  Sam didn’t want to let it go though.

“Look, if I get a chance I’ll try prying a little but I’m not making any promises.  Some things you can’t fix Sam.  You’re going to have to face that sooner or later.  Every door ya open makes some other door close.  That’s life.”

“I know you’re right,” and he had chosen normal, he had chosen college.  He definitely knew doors had closed when he did that, like his father’s.  “Thanks Bobby, I guess I should let you go.”

“Yeah?  You boys got that vampire problem pretty much squared away then?”  Bobby sounded amused as he asked.

“No, not exactly,” Sam admitted, “there’s a lot of lore but none of it seems to be very accurate.”

“Behead them, where there’s one vampire there’s usually a nest of them and if you find you need help, I know a few people who specialize in them.  Let me know.”

“Thanks Bobby, I’ll do that.”  Sam looked up at the hotel door.  It was still closed and he hoped he hadn’t missed anything while he was staring at his feet.  He felt a lot better knowing they could call Bobby if things went bad.

“Sure, and be careful, idjit,” Bobby said, hanging up.

“I will,” Sam told the phone.  He put it in his pocket and wondered why a part of him didn’t want to deal with the vampires now.  Was it just because he knew Dean would leave once they were dealt with?  Yes, that struck him as true.  He didn’t want Dean to leave, but once the vampire problem was dealt with, of course Dean would have to go.  That thought made it a little harder for him to breathe.  How strange.

Sam waited a little while, trying to understand the feelings that were swirling around inside him.  All he knew was that he didn’t want Dean to go.  He wasn’t sure whether it was just because of the drinking and such or not.  Finally, he went inside to get ready for classes.

*

Dean woke around noon, he had no idea what time he’d fallen asleep.  What he did know was that he was out of his league with demons.  He’d never dealt with any directly before and he needed some help.  He only knew one place to find that help.

“Hey Dad, it’s Dean.  Something came up on this job I’m on and I need your help, give me a call,” was his first message, before he headed into the shower to wash up.

“Dad, it’s Dean, look it has to do with demons so could you give a guy a hand here?” was his third message, as he drove to a diner for breakfast.  He found that he wasn’t as hungry as he’d thought, but he managed a small breakfast and coffee then he headed out to the liquor store.

“God dammit Dad, I know you’re getting these messages!  Call me back already,” was his seventh message after two bottles of whiskey.

He woke up in bed and glanced over to see Sammy sleeping in his own bed.  Sammy must have put him into bed at some point.  Dean slid out of bed and took a beer with him as he left the room to make his tenth call.  “Fuck you,” was his last message before he dialed Bobby’s number.  It was around midnight, but he figured Bobby was probably up.

“Yeah?” Bobby’s voice said on the second ring.

“Hey Bobby, any idea what job Dad’s on right now?” Dean asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Bobby asked, “You boys tryin’ to make sure I don’t sleep or somethin’?”

Dean paused.  Sam had called Bobby?  What the hell had Sam called Bobby for?  “No,” he said cautiously.  It had never occurred to him that Sam might still know Bobby’s number.

“You haven’t even talked to Sam today, have ya?” Bobby asked then, and Dean could hear him taking off his reading glasses, then rubbing at his eyes.

“No.”  Somehow he’d missed Sam and in a way he’d wanted to.  It was becoming more and more difficult to see him and not make some sort of move on him.  That was something he just couldn’t do.  Sam would never look at him in the same way, and he would probably hate him.

“I know it ain’t none of my business but he’s worried about you Dean.  What the hell is going on?  You know how easy it is to rile that boy up.”

Dean swallowed, “So what, he called you about me?”  He hadn’t realized Sammy was that worried, maybe he did need to lay off a bit.  He thought back on the last week and realized it was pretty much a haze.  It could be that cutting back would be a good idea, but how would he sleep?

“Yeah, you idjit.  No one calls me about the vampire that’s after him but he calls me to tell me you’re drinking and acting churlish, so what the hell’s your problem Dean?”  Bobby sounded more annoyed than angry, something Dean wasn’t used to.

“Nothing, really,” Dean tried, hoping Bobby would drop it.

“Yeah, sure it is.  Now you know I try to stay out of this personal shit.  A man’s got a right to his secrets, but when your brother finds my number to ask a shit ton of questions I can’t answer about you, I start to worry.  Don’t play games with me Dean.  I know somethin’s up.  You self destructin’ out there?”

“Naw Bobby I… look, if I tell you, you can’t tell anyone, not even Sam.”  Was he really going to tell?  The thing was he sort of needed to tell someone, and Bobby was less likely to judge him than anyone else.  Besides, it wasn’t like he’d acted on it or anything.  “You gotta promise me.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a while, then, “This have something to do with your brother?”

“I’m not answering that unless you promise.”  Dean knew that if he didn’t have Bobby’s word he couldn’t trust in his silence.

“Yeah, alright, I promise I’ll keep it to myself.  Now what’s going on?”

That was worse in a way because then Dean had to figure out how to say it.  “It does… have to do with Sam.”

“Well?”

That was all the lead in Bobby was going to give him.  He supposed that was fair, but now he was afraid of how Bobby might look at him if he told.  “I’m having a problem, ever since Sammy started looking more adult.”

“What sort of problem?”

“I uh, well it’s um…” He shouldn’t have agreed to tell.  It was one of those things that seemed near impossible to do, maybe because he’d kept it inside so long.  “He’s turned out really good looking.”

The pause lasted several seconds.  “You saying you have a thing for your brother?”

“No!”  It was a startle reaction and Dean had to awkwardly contradict himself right after, “Yes.”

“You told anyone?”

“Just you, just now.”  Who else could he really tell?

Some more silence.  Dean shifted, wondering what Bobby was going to say next.  “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised.  The two of you have only ever had each other in a lot of ways, your Dad off every which way all the time.  You should talk to Sam about this though, Dean.  It’s not something to carry around yourself.  He’d be relieved to know what the issue was.”

“No way.  I tell him about this and everything changes.  You gotta see why I can’t.”  Dean couldn’t believe Bobby was even suggesting it.

“Or nothin’ changes, you don’t know Dean.”  Bobby huffed and Dean heard his chair creak as if he was standing up.  “You should trust the relationship the two a’ you have already built.  Think of everything it’s survived.  It would make it through this too, easy.”

“You don’t know that, you’re guessing.”  Dean couldn’t take the chance.

“You too, and the secret is eatin’ you alive, right?”

“Something like that,” Dean mumbled, kicking at the ground.

“At least think about tellin’ him.  Now, you callin’ about the vampires or somethin’ else?”

“It’s about demons actually, and since you don’t know where Dad is maybe you can help.”  As the conversation turned to monsters Dean felt more in his element and his insecurities receded, but after he hung up with Bobby everything came back.  Talk to Sammy?  No way.

*

Sam had agreed to the scheme with a certain amount of reluctance.  For one thing he hadn’t noticed anything unusual or off about Wayne.  Wayne was just Wayne.  He was a nice guy, a little conservative sometimes but fairly easy going.  Demon?  Sam just didn’t see it.  Dean kept saying that testing things out was a nothing lost sort of deal though.

Actually, half the reason he’d agreed to the whole thing was that Dean seemed to be functioning again.  He’d laid off the liquor a bit and was more reasonable than he’d been in days.  Sam still couldn’t get him to talk about anything other than Wayne, Kelly and vampire nests, but he felt a little better about Dean’s state in general.

As they rolled up the carpet, Sam hoped that Wayne wouldn’t show up at the room while they were working.  They’d already been through garlic and the fake blood, drawing symbols on the floor under his bed might be the last straw.

“You sure you drew that part right?”  Sam asked, glancing at the book Dean was using for reference.

“Yeah,” Dean looked up at the book.  “No,” he rubbed away the incorrect marking and redid it.

“As long as you’re sure,” Sam joked, leaning against the rolled carpet and watching.

“You can do this if you want,” Dean said looking up.  “You do better at this type of shit anyhow.”

Sam laughed.  As far as he knew neither one of them were artists.  His eyes went to and lingered on Dean’s hands.  He held them steady as he worked.  Dean had always been good with his hands, and sometimes Sam wondered why he wasn’t artistic.  Maybe it was the imagination part of it, neither of them had had the sort of childhood that led to a good imagination.  “I’m better at remembering things, which is different.”

Dean glanced at him, shrugged and went back to work.  Once the devil’s trap was on the ground, they carefully rolled the carpet back onto the floor and set Wayne’s bed within it.

“Now what?” Sam asked and Dean smiled.

“Now I take my little brother to dinner, we hang a little and come back late night.  If it worked he won’t be able to escape during the exorcism.”

“And if it didn’t he won’t even know we’re doing this, right?”  Sam was still worried about that.

“As long as we don’t wake him up.”  Dean said, nodding.  “Now, where do you want to eat?”

“You sure you want to leave that up to me?”

“Yeah, let’s go where you like to eat.”

“If you say so.”  Sam directed him to the Chopper.  It was actually amusing to watch Dean struggle between wanting to let Sam eat food he liked, and disliking just about everything on the menu.

“They only have three sandwiches,” Dean finally complained.

“Yeah, their salads are fantastic though,” Sam told him.  It was kind of too bad his brother refused to eat salads.  Sam thought Dean would probably love the Phil if he gave it a chance.  It was like a cheesesteak sub without the bread.

Dean huffed and looked at the menu again.  A minute passed.  “You really eat this stuff?”

“If you want to go somewhere else…”

“No, no…”  Dean was quietly contemplating the menu for a while again.  “They don’t have french fries.”

Sam laughed, “There’s a burger place just down the…” he began to motion in the direction as Dean interrupted.

“No, I like this.  This is good.”  Dean set aside the menu.  “So what do you think of it, college?”

The whole thing kept getting weirder.  Dean was really going out of his way though, so Sam tried answering honestly to see what would happen.  Dean ordered the salad featuring chicken fingers, hold the salad with a couple bags of chips and seemed totally content with the result.  In the meantime they talked, for the first time since Dean had arrived.

By the time dinner was over, Sam was feeling a lot better about everything.  The two of them walked silently across campus with purpose, and he really thought things were right again.  Whatever had been bothering Dean had somehow been dealt with, or it had dealt with itself.

They slipped into the dorm room to find Wayne, wide awake, sitting on his bed.  His eyes went from Sam to Dean and lingered there.  “Did you two have a nice little date?”

“Shut up!” Dean slammed the door shut, and it looked to Sam like he might hit Wayne.

Sam frowned, “We’re brothers, you know that.”  He didn’t really understand what was going on, why Wayne was awake, why he would say something like that.  It made no sense.

“Oh yeah, I know that, but let me tell you something you don’t know…” Wayne began and this time, Dean did hit him.

“What’s the problem Wayne?  You can’t get out of the trap so you need to come up with a way to get one of us to let you out, or something?”  Dean motioned at Sam, “Read it, Sammy.”

“Sam, it’s Sam.”  Was Wayne stuck?  Maybe, he didn’t move from the bed.

“Fucking Winchesters, you just might want to keep in mind Sam that your brother here has a thing for…”

“Now,” Dean roared and Sam began to read.  They were going to wake up half the dorm if Dean kept shouting.  They had agreed that Sam would read the exorcism since he was a bit better at pronunciation then Dean.  As he read he heard Wayne talking to him, talking about Dean, but he didn’t register exactly what was being said.  He had to concentrate on what he was reading.  An unnatural wind whipped through the room and then, dark smoke billowed out of Wayne’s mouth.

Dean was outside of the devil’s trap before the exorcism completed, but he darted in directly after to catch Wayne’s form as he slumped back.  Sam moved forward to check his pulse.  He moved his fingers several times before he shook his head,

“Shit, he’s dead Dean.  I’ll have to call for help.”

Dean nodded, “I’ll clean up.”  He started straightening the room, and removing all signs of the exorcism.  They spent the rest of the night dealing with the ambulance and police.  By the end, Sam was glad to retreat to the hotel for some sleep.

*

The demon had known about his feelings for Sammy and it had tried to use them.  That meant a lot to Dean.  It meant that demons knew things which were deep and hidden, secrets, maybe even secrets of an evil nature.  That was what his father would think of his feelings for Sammy, he felt sure.  It also meant that Sammy would probably not be okay with the way he felt.  Otherwise the demon wouldn’t have tried to use it.  Sammy was too good for him anyhow.  A person like Sammy didn’t fall for their brother.  Those were his thoughts when he decided not to do as Bobby had suggested in a final way.  It wasn’t just scary, he felt certain it would go badly.

Of course Dean would never admit to being scared.  He saw another person slip into the old house he was watching.  It was the nest, he’d found the vampires.  For two days he had watched them come and go and this morning Sammy was meeting him there.  When the sun was at its highest they would make their move.  All of the vampires were in by then.  They slept through the brightest part of the day, evidently it made them groggy.  If he could face a nest of vampires without flinching how could he admit that his emotions terrified him?  There was no way.

“Hey,” Sammy said, approaching quietly from his right and crouching beside him.  They were hiding in the super thick hedges that surrounded the house.  “Is everyone in?”

“Everyone but Kelley,” Dean said, looking up at the sun.  That wasn’t good.  It looked like she wasn’t going to show up.  “We might have to do her separately.”

Sam took a shaky breath.  “So what’s the plan?”

“We bust in and behead everything we find.”  Dean wasn’t much for planning.  Sammy was more the planning type.  “If someone tries to get away, we stop them.”  He held up a good sharp weapon, offering it to Sammy.

“We’d better split up so no one escapes out of the back door,” Sammy replied, “I’ll take the front, you take the back.”

The front was more visible and Sammy went to school in the area.  He shouldn’t be associated with something like this if things went wrong, “No, I’ll take the front,” Dean said.  Luckily, Sammy didn’t argue.  “When it’s done, we burn the place down.”  He nodded at the gas can beside him.  “I brought a little something to get things started.  Ready?”

“Yeah.”

They rushed the place, the first two kills were easy as they were fast asleep.  After that things were much more difficult.  The vampires were strong, and the fact that it was daytime didn’t seem to slow them down all that much.  One man kept Dean fighting until the two of them crashed through the wall and landed in the side yard.  Just when Dean was worried about drawing too much attention, Sammy jumped out of the hole and beheaded the man.  He offered Dean his hand.

“Let’s get back in there,” Sammy said.

Dean accepted his help and crawled back inside.  Yeah, he should have known Sammy would be as sharp as ever.  It wasn’t like he’d been away from things all that long.  

A woman rushed Dean from the side and a man rushed Sam, separating them again.  Dean made short work of the woman, managing to corner her and take her head off.  Swinging around he scanned the area for Sammy and saw him fending off not one but two women on the other side of the room.  Too bad they were vampires, the one was smoking hot.  Severing her head would be sort of sad.

He didn’t allow long for the thoughts though, they swirled around in Dean’s head rapid fire, as he ran over to give Sammy a hand.  The hot one lured him to a stairwell and managed to toss him down it, then she crammed a piano into the doorway trapping him down there.

“Fuck!”  Dean hurried up the stairs trying to see beyond the piano, “Sam, Sammy?  Behind you!”  Sam had just finished off the other vampire and he turned, swinging his axe as he did so, taking off the hot woman’s head as she charged him.

“No!” a female voice screamed as Sammy began to lower his axe.  That should have been all of them though.  Who was screaming?

*

Sammy turned his head towards the front of the house and saw Kelley standing in the front doorway, looking all around.  Her brothers and sisters all dead on the floor, mostly dust with the occasional bone.  A part of Sam sympathised.  It was the reason he had made the suggestion that they each turn the other way and forget about each other.  She was the one who hadn’t let him.

Dean was different, he knew.  For Dean a monster was a monster and that was that.

Kelley dropped her things on the floor, her shoulders going slack.  Her eyes caught on Sam and she started shaking her head.  “You didn’t do this, you couldn’t have.  You would never take away someone’s family.  You aren’t the type.”  Her eyes pled with him.

“I remember telling you to back off.”  Sam glanced at the blocked basement stairs, knowing that Dean was beyond what was left of the piano.  He didn’t really want to discuss this in front of Dean, but there wasn’t really a choice.

“You didn’t tell me you were going to kill everyone!”  Her eyes flashed.  “You owe me Sam, you seriously owe me now.  If you become my willing mate, though, I’ll forgive you, I guess.  We’ll just have to rebuild the family.”  She came towards him, her eyes on his.  It was strange, how human she seemed in that moment.  She just wanted her family back.

“You showed me that you were dangerous to people when you refused to accept my answer.  No, Kelley, I’m not going to be a vampire.  I like being human.  I want to stay this way.”

“No?  No?!  No!!!???” She threw herself at him, catching him off guard and Sam tumbled to the ground.  “You killed them, how dare you?”  She was hitting him like a hysterical woman, except that she was much stronger and it hurt a lot more.  Sam reached for his axe and she pounded her elbow on his arm.  Pain surged up his arm.

“Calm down, shit,” he was trying to reason with her?  What the hell was he thinking?  Sam didn’t even know.  ‘Calm down so I can kill you’ just wasn’t something you could say to someone, and he had to kill her.  He had to get the whole thing over with.

Her face was like a mask of horror, as anger and sorrow chased each other across it and Sam couldn’t break her grip on him.  She had him thoroughly pinned to the ground.  “You know what I think Sammy?”  She growled, “I think you don’t have a choice here.  When I bite you, you’ll turn and you won’t hurt me after that.”  Fangs lowered towards his neck and Sam struggled, thrashing his head to try to protect his neck.  Then he heard the loud sound of tearing flesh.  A moment later Kelley’s head hit the floor next to his shoulder and rolled a bit.

“I’m the only one,” Dean said, “who’s allowed to call him Sammy.”  Then he pried what was left of Kelley off of Sam, dripping blood the entire time.

Sam sat up, staring at Dean.  He had splinters through his skin all over, some of them thick as half an inch or so.  His eyes went to the stairs and he saw that Dean had broken through the piano leaving a gaping hole in the wood.  “You… we need to get you home and stop that bleeding,” Sam managed to say as Dean helped him up.

“Sure, let’s just get this place burning first,” Dean said, and he carried on as if there was nothing more wrong than a few scrapes or bruises.  Watching him was painful.  Sam quickly moved to help, so they could get out of there and he could start fixing Dean up.

*

Sammy was fast asleep in the other hotel bed.  Dean couldn’t resist going over and sitting down beside his little brother.  Sammy shifted, reached out and put a hand lightly on Dean’s arm.  A half smile stretched over Dean’s lips.  Sammy had the most innocent look when he was asleep, his face relaxed and his hair ruffled every which way.  Dean remembered the way he used to harass Sammy by messing up his hair.  He remembered wrestling with his brother, the way he had always won until Sammy had gotten older.

He really remembered the first time Sammy had pinned him, arm muscles so strong and hard.  His eyes slid over those muscles, still hard and smooth.  “Not so little anymore, Sammy.”  He needed to leave or he would give it all away and then Sammy would hate him.

“Dean?” Sammy asked softly, stirring, his eyes fluttering open.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, go back to sleep Sammy.”  Sammy would be okay.  If he wasn’t, he would call, and if he was, then he probably wouldn’t.  Dean had to let him go… again.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Sammy.  It’s not time to get up yet.”  Dean got up and turned his back on his brother.  He was already showered, dressed and packed.  When he was done writing a quick note telling Sammy that he had a job and he needed to run, he took a last look over to see his brother fast asleep again.  “Goodbye, Sammy,” he whispered and then he slipped out the door.

Dean didn’t have a job, and he wasn’t going back to find his father.  The man had ignored him long enough to make his feelings clear.  He didn’t want anything to do with Dean now that he’d gone to Sammy.  That was just fine.  Dean didn’t want to see his Dad so it worked out.  He drove where the sun led him, found jobs in local papers and when he wasn’t working, he drank, a lot.

*

Dean picked up his check and paid it before leaving the bar.  He wasn’t sure where he was.  Wherever it was, it was damn unpleasant in the winter.  Freezing winds whipped around him, cutting into his skin painfully like ice shards.  He’d been stumbling drunk when he’d left the bar and the cold gave him a headache that pierced his skull, but he couldn’t go home.  There was snow falling, so it must be near Christmas, and Sammy had to get presents for Christmas.  It was important.

At some point the thought had wormed its way into his skull and he couldn’t let it go.  There needed to be presents for Sammy, and he was the only one who could send them.  The problem was what to send, so he went down the street staring into store windows, until he saw one with a train.  He remembered how Sammy would always comment on tv shows where people had a train around their Christmas tree.  Nodding he opened up the door and stumbled into the store.

“I need to get a train,” Dean told the owner, “that one would be good.”  He pointed out the one in the window.

“You have a good eye, I made that one by hand,” the old man said, meeting Dean’s eyes.  “It’s pretty expensive.”

Dean nodded, he didn’t care about the cost.  “I’m getting it for my brother to put around the Christmas tree.”  He had to assume Sammy would have a Christmas tree, it would be the normal thing to do.

“For Christmas, huh?  It would make a fine present.  Does your brother collect trains?”  The man didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get Dean out of there, and the shop was warm, so Dean didn’t mind.  He was starting to feel pretty good, if a bit unsteady.

“No, but he’s always wanted one.  Sammy would watch tv and he would point them out to me all of December.  Look at that train, he would say, it has eight cars.  I always wanted to get him one, but we never had the money and we moved around a lot.”  Dean thought maybe it was too late and that made him sad.

“Never too late, there are just as many adults who collect trains as children, maybe more,” the man said cheerfully.  “Now if you’re sure you want to buy that train, but you only have twenty four hours to return it if you change your mind.  You understand?”  He looked at Dean with piercing eyes, and Dean nodded quickly.

“Won’t want to return it.  I’m sending it out today.”

The man gave him a searching look, then shook his head, “I’ll box it up carefully then.  Does your brother live far?”

“California,” Dean assumed that was far.  California didn’t get snow.  He paid for the train, and then walked it to the post office, carefully addressing it to Sammy, before he stumbled out of the post office and headed home.

There, now he knew for sure Sammy would have a present for Christmas.

At the hotel Dean stumbled through the door, falling on the floor and kicking the door closed with his foot.  He stared vacantly at the ceiling for a while.  In the background he heard the news anchor on the tv announcing record temperatures in North Dakota.  It was the coldest December the state had ever experienced.

For a few moments, Dean wondered if there was some supernatural reason for the temperatures, then he passed out.

*

“What you got there, Sam?” Jess asked, as Sam turned away from the front desk at the dorm.

Sam was still wondering what he had himself.  “Package from my brother,” he told her, staring at the poorly wrapped lump.  It was covered in brown paper and had a bow around it.

“Christmas present?” she asked and Sam could hear the doubt in her voice.  He understood it too.

“Yeah, maybe.”  They had planned a study date, and Jess was quickly becoming a good friend even if he was a bit girlfriend shy these days.  “Look, it might be better if we called off for tonight.  My brother has been going through some sort of tough time lately and I think maybe I should call him.”

“Because he sent you a present?” Jess asked, then she shook her head.  “Personal stuff, right?  It’s fine, let me know when you want to get together again.”

That was one of the things about her he loved, the way she knew when to back off.

“Sure.”  Sam still wasn’t sure why he’d done that.  There was the way the package was wrapped, but Dean had never been very good at wrapping things so that shouldn’t worry him.  There was the way December had just begun and he was receiving what looked suspiciously like a Christmas gift.  It hinted that Dean might be a bit out of it.  More so, though, was the silence that had been there since Dean had gone away.  Sam hadn’t expected to hear anything at all, and strangely, hearing from Dean worried him more than not hearing.

He watched Jess walk away then took the elevator to his dorm room.  Once he’d avoided the package for as long as he could, putting things away, checking his messages and getting a drink out of the mini-fridge, he finally began carefully peeling away the tape.  The large box beneath the paper gave him no clue about its contents, but Dean had written on the side in unsteady letters Merry Christmas Sammy, Love Dean.

It only made him more worried.  Why was Dean’s hand so unsteady?  Was he injured?  Bleeding?  Drinking again?  He took another deep breath to steady himself, and opened the box.  Inside he found a lot of tissue paper and bubble wrap.  Once he’d found the train and tracks among it he was even more confused.

Sam checked the train for curses and didn’t find any.  He put the tracks together and ran the train, watching it make its way around the tracks again and again.  It was obviously hand crafted and very well made.  The black engine smoked a bit and had a whistle that blew every time it came to a particular track.  The instructions told him that he would have to refill the water if he wanted it to keep smoking.

He leaned back and watched the train, remembering the years when he had wanted something like this.  Dean had never even acknowledged his comments though, and Sam had thought he wasn’t really even listening.  Maybe he had been.  Still, why now?  Could it be as simple as an ,“I saw this and wanted you to have it”, moment?

There was only one way to find out.  Sam pulled out his phone and called Dean.  The phone rang and rang, then went to voicemail.  “Hey Dean, it’s Sam.  Call me.”

Sam left the train running while he worked on his homework.  Then he turned it off and gave Dean one more try before leaving the dorm to get dinner.

“Yeah?” Dean answered.

“It’s Sam, Dean.  I got your present.”  He waited, listening closely.

“Oh, yeah, well Merry Christmas and all that.  How’s school?”  There wasn’t much to hear in the background.

“School’s fine.  It’s a little early for Christmas though.  December 6th, you sent it a bit too soon.”

“Oh, is it?”  Something clattered and fell.  “That’s fine, better than late is early.”

“Yeah, I guess.  Are you alright?”

“Couldn’t be better, Sammy.  I’m just kicking back a little bit looking for another cashe, cay-sh, sase, you know.  Just relaxing a bit.”

“Are you drunk?”

There was a pause and then finally, “…Maybe a little.”

“Where are you, Dean?  Do you have anyone with you?”  Sammy was pacing now, not liking what he was hearing at all.  Dean had already been worrying him with his drinking, but now he sounded worse than ever.  The phone went silent.  “Dean?  Dean!”

Sam looked at his phone and saw that he was no longer connected.  He dialed Dean and it went to voicemail.  He dialed Dean again, voicemail.  Dialed.  Voicemail.  “Fuck!”  He stared at his phone a minute and then dialed his father’s number.

“The number you have dialed is not in service, please check the number and dial again,” an automated message told him.  Sam hung up and dialed Bobby.

“Sam?” Bobby asked on the second ring.

“Bobby!  Bobby have you heard anything from Dean?  I was just on the phone with him and… I’m not sure, I think we got disconnected.  Now he’s not answering.”  To be honest what he thought was that Dean had hung up on him.  Bobby had gone silent.  Sam could almost hear Bobby thinking in the silence.

“Maybe he wants to be left to himself,” Bobby suggested, after a time.

“Yeah, maybe.  Or maybe he passed out and hit the wrong button on his phone.  He’s so drunk, he can’t talk straight.  I thought he was doing better when he left, but he’s a mess.  Bobby, what’s going on with him?  Did you talk to him at all since last time?  Do you know where he’s at?  Is he back with Dad?  Is there… anyone there with him?”

“I ain’t got a clue if he’s got anyone there,” Bobby said, then he swore a few times for good measure.

“I’m worried about him, Bobby.  Can you help me at all?”

“No, I can’t do shit.  Look, I told him to talk to ya about what was going on but Dean made me promise not to say.”

“He made you promise?!”  Sam  paced his dorm room, frustrated.  What the hell?  “So he’s not just keeping secrets, but he’s making other people promise not to tell me about them?”

“I don’t think he’s told anyone but me,” Bobby replied.  “It’s a pretty big one.”

“Yeah?  Is it worth drinking himself to death over?  For all I know he’s in the middle of a case, all it takes is one slip up, or what if something from the past comes after him?”  Sam was getting more and more worried.  The more he thought about the situation, the more upset he got.  Dean had said he was between cases but Dean wasn’t always honest, like the day he’d left.  Sam was pretty sure it wasn’t for a case.  He was pretty sure Dean had left, to avoid having to say goodbye.

“Son, I told ya I wanted him to talk to you about it.  I don’t think it’s something a person should hold inside, especially with the way you two have been.”

“What do you mean?  Bobby, does this have something to do with me?  I knew it!  I knew it had something to do with me!  You have to tell me.  What’s going through Dean’s head right now.”

Bobby sighed, a deep, long sigh.  “Shit.”

Sam held his breath and waited.

“Sam, I don’t think…” Bobby began, but Sam didn’t like the sound of that.

“Please, Bobby.  I’m not gonna go and make things worse, so please.  You have to tell me what’s going on.”  Sam didn’t like begging, but he would do it.  He would do just about anything for Dean.

“I’m only tellin’ you this ‘cause I feel like you have the right to know.  Dean’ll be furious with me when he finds out I’ve told.”

“He won’t,” Sam said, determined to do everything he could to keep Bobby from Dean’s anger.

“We’ll see.”  Bobby was silent again, several moments.  “It’s pretty simple to tell, might be a little hard to digest.  You ready?”

“Yeah, I am.”  Sam stood completely still in his dorm room and stared at the train, not knowing what to expect in the least.

“He’s got a thing for you, a, uh, sexual thing I guess.”  Sam could hear the discomfort in Bobby’s voice, but it was distant somehow.  He felt a little dizzy and detached.

“Sexual?”  His brain and body felt completely disconnected, then he walked to the nearest chair, and sat down.  He’d never thought of Dean that way, or another guy at all.

“Yeah, a more lasting sort of thing I guess.  It’s been going on for years and he’s convinced himself you’ll hate him if you find out about it.”  Bobby was quiet for a time then.  Sam knew he was waiting for some sort of reaction, but he couldn’t really find anything to say, and he felt rather numb for the moment.  

“Are you gonna hate him?”  Bobby asked.

That pulled Sam back.  He shook his head.  “I can’t hate Dean,” he answered automatically.  He could never hate Dean.  He wasn’t sure about letting Dean have sex with him.  The idea of a guy inside of him made him uncomfortable to say the least, but he was thinking about it because Dean… evidently Dean… wanted him that way.  “He told you this?”

“Yeah, one a’ the most uncomfortable conversations a’ my life.  This one’s comin’ pretty close.”

“Oh, sorry,” Sam had no idea what else to say, then he realized what needed to happen next.  “Do you know where he is?”

“No, you gonna be okay Sam?”

“Yeah Bobby, and Dean will be too,” Sam was going to make sure of it.  “I’ll trace his phone and we’ll talk.”  He didn’t know what would come out of it, but he knew that he could make things alright somehow.  No one was more important to him than Dean, so whatever it took to make this right, he would do it.  “Thanks for telling me.”

“Sure, keep in touch, son.”

“I will.”  Sam hung up.  He began the search on his laptop and while it pinpointed Dean’s phone he started packing.

*

The light shined brightly into the hotel room, whitening the paper to the point that it seemed to glare at Dean.  He drew his pencil across it anyhow.  Art wasn’t really his thing, which was why he usually defaulted to quickly sketched stick figures, green zig-zag grass and blue cloud outlines.  Now, though, what was on the paper was what he had.  Memories of Sammy, who he couldn’t stop thinking about, slowly and painstakingly filled the paper.

He’d learned not to erase.  Erasing only seemed to make things worse.  Instead he took his time, slowly easing his minds images onto the paper.  Whenever he finished a portion of what he was drawing, he refilled his cup, drank it down.  The liquor in his room had been bought by the case at the liquor store.  He had enough to last him, in case he got snowed in.

With a sigh, he set down the pencil and took a long drink to steady his hand.  There were different phases, he knew.  Too sober made his hands shake like crazy, too drunk made them randomly do whatever the hell they wanted.  There was a zone in between when he could draw.  He looked back at his drawing and picked up the pencil again.  Sammy was splayed across the page, his head tipped just slightly over the edge of his bed.  His nipples were slightly hard and his hand was reaching down to touch his hard length.  Dean remembered the night he’d woken to see that.  He was pretty sure if he wasn’t so drunk, he would be hard just looking at the drawing.

He could hardly ever get hard anymore though.  It was the liquor.  He knew that.  It was neutering him, and it didn’t matter.  Since seeing Sammy again he hadn’t been able to get into women like he used to anyhow.  All there was was Sammy, and Sammy wasn’t coming for him.  Ever.

*

Dean stared at the tv and drank.  To his right and left were sketchpads, pencils, beer bottles and liquor bottles.  Some were on flat surfaces, some rolled on the floor.  He didn’t remember the last time he’d moved from the hotel couch to the bed.  The sign on his door said Do Not Disturb.  Under it he had scrawled Sick & Contagious.  No one had so much as knocked on the door since.

He’d actually heard a couple refuse to take the room next to his because of his sign and been amused.  He might be sick but it sure as hell wasn’t contagious.  Dean flipped through the stations a little bit vacantly, staring at the screen.  Nothing really caught his attention and he thought maybe he would pass out soon.  Then someone knocked on his room door.

Dean turned his head slowly to stare.  Who would be brave enough to knock?  Not the cleaners, they would never; not the manager, he had paid for the month.  After a little bit, the knocking turned to banging, and he wondered if maybe it was the police.  Well, if it was let them come in and pry him out.  He was in no shape to run.  As he turned his head back to stare at the screen again, he heard a muffled voice call out his name.  He knew he was imagining things.  It sounded like Sammy.

After a time there was silence again.  Dean took another drink cursing his body for not letting him pass out yet.  He must be developing an even higher tolerance level than ever.  He heard a soft scraping noise and then a click.  Then the hotel room door opened, and bottles clanked against each other as it ran into them.

“What the fuck,” Sammy said, entering the room.  He was so tall his body filled the entire doorway.  Dean found himself staring.  Maybe he wasn’t gaining a tolerance.  He had to be dreaming or hallucinating or something.  Sammy couldn’t really be there scrunching up his face with a look of disgust.  “Christ, Dean, this is just… gross.”

He came into the room, closing the door, then he opened the curtain, and the huge front windows.  The air that filled the room was frigid.  “Sammy, it’s cold,” Dean whined in a really unappealing way, but since he had to be hallucinating, or dreaming, it didn’t matter, right?  Right.

Sammy shook his head and came over to him.  “Dean, you’re a mess.”  He was wearing a thick navy blue coat.  There was a dusting of snow on it.  “How long since your last shower?”

“Dunno,” Dean answered.  It was nice to see Sammy again, even if it wasn’t real.  He didn’t even mind having to look at Sammy’s best bitch face.

“I’m not surprised.  Come on, get up.  Can you get up?”

“Of course I can!”  Dean struggled to stand.  He got to the point where he had to let go of the couch arm, and then fell back onto the cushion.

“Yeah, sure you can.”  Then Sammy’s arms were around him, pulling him close.  For a moment Dean sighed and relaxed.  That was nice.  How long had he wanted Sammy to hold him?  Then he was being pulled onto his feet.

“Come on Dean, try to help me out here.  We have to get you into the shower and into bed.  Try to walk, that’s better.”

No, it really wasn’t.  If he was going to hallucinate Sammy, couldn’t he be a bit less obnoxious and a bit more cuddly?  Still, he had to admit his mind did Sammy well.  This was just how he imagined his little brother would react if he saw how Dean had been living.  Dean nearly fell into the shower.  “Christ Sammy, slow down.”

Sam raised his eyebrows at him, “We’re here now, so there’s really no reason to do that.  Come on, let’s get your clothes off.”

“Sure,” Dean tried to help which mostly involved his arms getting in Sammy’s way several times, until all of his clothes were off.  Then Sammy was washing him and yeah, that was nice.  Too bad he wasn’t really up to anything else.  If he was going to hallucinate Sammy, Sammy could at least fuck him once.  Just having Sammy around was an improvement, though, so Dean didn’t complain.  He didn’t complain at all until Sammy tried to leave him tucked into the hotel bed.

“No,” Dean said, grabbing hold of Sam’s arm, gripping it tightly.

“No what?”  Sammy asked, frowning at him.

“No, you have to stay.  Don’t want you to go.  If you go, you won’t be here.”

A long silence greeted that.  “Well, no.  I’m not going though, Dean.  I’m just gonna clean up this mess.  I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

“Right here?”  He wanted that, for Sammy to be right there.  Tears started welling up and falling down his face, and he didn’t bother to do anything about them, because none of it was real.

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere until we figure this out.  I’ll be right here.”

It wasn’t good enough.  Dean knew the ins and outs of dreams and hallucinations.  It didn’t matter what anyone said, they always ended.  “Promise?”

“Yeah Dean, I promise.”

He didn’t let go of Sammy.  He held onto his arm, but he did close his eyes.  When he woke up, Sammy would probably be gone, but for now, he could feel him there.  He knew he was right there, and that made all the difference somehow.

*

Dean had fallen asleep clinging to his arm.  Sam was still trying to digest the whole thing.  The worst part was the way that it all fit together.  He felt stupid for never catching on, now that he knew what everything had meant.  Dean suddenly seeming shy around him, the way he sometimes looked at Sam, some of the things he’d done and said.  Of course Dean had started drinking to drown his desire.  What behavior had their father always exhibited?  Stuff your emotions down, and when that doesn’t work, drink.

It was difficult to believe just how bad Dean had gotten though.  The hotel room stank, and it was full of trash.  Some of the take-out wrappers looked nearly a month old, none of them looked recent.  He suspected that Dean had most recently stopped eating completely.  Sam couldn’t make sense of the pencils though.  He had a pile growing on the table of nearly 50 and several pencil sharpeners too, some of them broken, probably stepped on.

Then he picked up a sketch pad and Sam found himself rooted to the ground.  He stared at the drawing of himself that looked almost like a black and white photo it was so well done.  No, it was better than a photo.  He sat down near the window and turned back a page.  There he was sitting at a hotel table studying.  Flip, he was playing with that dog who lived at one of the hotels they’d stayed at.  Flip, he was looking out of the hotel room window at this girl he liked in high school who rode the same bus.  Flip, he was naked, Christ.

Sam closed the sketch pad.  When had Dean learned to draw?  He’d never seen him do anything more than stick figures.  Was he imagining things?  He opened the sketch pad again.  No, Dean was really good.  His drawings were amazing and all of that from memory.  How had he done it?  As he continued to clean, he began to see the progressions of Dean’s skills to some extent.  The sketch pads, there had to be over 40 of them, began at a really different level of skill.  None of them had stick figures, but there was an awkwardness to the first tries, the first three or four sketch pads worth of stuff.

“Sammy?” Dean was standing in the middle of the room wearing nothing but a pair of underwear.

“Yeah?” Sam asked.

“I need a drink.”

Sam set down the sketchpad and got up, “No you don’t, Dean.  You need breakfast and we need to talk.”

Dean shook his head, “I’m pretty sure on this one.”  His hands were shaking and he looked really pale.

“Get dressed, and you can have *one* drink with breakfast, but I don’t want you drunk.  We really need to talk.”  Sam stressed, wondering if Dean actually counted as sober yet.

For some reason Dean just nodded rather meekly and retreated to put on clothes.  “Sure.”

Sam left the room to pick up food, and grab some liquor from his car.  He’d put everything that was left there, so Dean couldn’t just go at it the minute he got up.  When he got back, Dean was pacing by the door, looking very uncomfortable.  As soon as he entered the room, Dean’s eyes snapped to him.  Dean nodded, “You’re real.”

“Yeah, Dean.”  Sammy put the food on the table and poured Dean a glass of whiskey.  “How else do you think the place got so clean?”

“I was wondering about that,” Dean admitted.

“It’s because I cleaned it.”

Nodding, Dean sat down, and took a drink.

“Eat too,” Sam directed and to his surprise, Dean started eating.  Not wanting to disturb that, Sam waited, eating his own food.

“You said we needed to talk,” Dean finally said as he finished his food.  There was a little more color to his face, but Sam wasn’t sure if that was because of the food, or the drink.

“Yeah, we do.”  Sam pulled out one of the sketch pads and opened it to a drawing of him masturbating.  “Let’s talk about this.”

Dean’s face got pale again.  “That.  That is.  It’s just a drawing for Christ’s sake!”

Sam lifted his eyebrows, “Really?  You’re really going to try to convince me of that?”

It was hard to watch Dean sort of deflate right in front of him, but he’d done harder things just recently, like seeing Dean when he walked into the hotel room, or watching him when he came to Stanford.

Dean stared at the table in silence, evidently unable to speak or look up.

“I’m not angry, Dean.  I just want to understand.”  He nudged the sketchpad, “When you drew that, what were you thinking?”  This was the best solution he’d come up with while he was cleaning, the way to keep Bobby out of things.

“I… I just…”  Dean finally looked up, and Sam could see that most of what he was feeling, was fear.

“Yeah?”

“I… can’t talk about it.”

“I think you can,” Sam got up and moved closer to Dean, “I think you will, because I’m here, and if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I can’t understand it.”

For a while, it seemed like Dean was just going to stare at him like a deer caught in headlights.  Sam didn’t back down though, and eventually Dean said, “I think you’re hot,” so softly that Sam probably wouldn’t have had a clue what he’d said, if he didn’t already know what was going on.

“Yeah?  So what, you want to have sex with me or something?”  Sam figured he needed to push, so he did.

Dean’s eyes widened, “Well, yeah,” he admitted.

“Is this what all of this self destructive behavior is about?”

“No,” Dean said and Sam got angry.  He had no idea what he looked like, but it must have worried Dean, because he back pedaled pretty quickly vocally, “Maybe, uh, yeah, I guess it is.”

“So you just want to have sex with me, then you’ll cut this shit out, and we can go back to our lives?”  It was something Sam had been wondering for a while.

Dean didn’t answer right away.  “No, I don’t really think it’s like that.  That’s why… look, you don’t need to worry about this Sammy.  It’s my problem, not yours and…”

“Fuck that!  You’ve had your chance to deal with this alone Dean, and I’d say you’ve screwed it up pretty bad.”  Sam took hold of his face so he couldn’t look away.  “Now I’m in.  We’re dealing with this together, like we always deal with the big things.”

“You shouldn’t have to…”

“But I do!”  He wasn’t letting Dean talk him into walking away again.  “If you have a thing for me, fine.  We’ll sort it out together.”

“Sort it out how?”  Dean shook his head, “It’s not like it can happen, I mean it’s not like I can have you.”

Sam surprised himself with his next move.  He leaned in and kissed Dean.  There was nothing quick about the kiss either, it was a long, hard, passionate kiss that went on, until he lost his breath a bit, before pulling away.  He was surprised at how right it felt to kiss Dean.  “Why not?”

“Because… it’s not right?”

“Yeah, okay, won’t be the first time people disapproved of something we did.”  Sam was more worried about the guy, guy thing than he was about the brother part.  “I can’t say I’m completely comfortable with it, but if it’s so important to you, then I think it’s something we have to try.”  That was the conclusion all of his thinking had come to.  He’d had a lot of time to think, too, driving all the way to North Dakota.

“Really?”  Dean’s eyes searched his.

“Yeah, really.”

*

Dean couldn't believe that Sam had agreed to try this.  The two of them were alone on the hotel bed, naked.  Somehow they had ended up in a completely awkward state, no longer kissing and not doing anything else either.  Dean was plenty hard, but he wasn't sure how to ask Sam to be the one who went inside of him and he'd just figured out that Sam might be expecting to take the passive role.  That made sense, but it wasn't what Dean wanted.  So there they were, not doing anything.

For his part, Sam was only half hard, his eyes traveling over Dean's face as they stared at each other.  Finally though, he cleared his throat and nodded at Dean.  "So," he started.  "Um... do you have, uh... lube?"

Dean nodded, "Yeah, it's in the drawer."  He moved to get it, because it was something he knew how to do and getting Sammy inside of him was rapidly looking like something he really didn't know how to do.  He pulled out the lube and he looked at it.  Would Sam get the idea if he handed it over?  He gave it a try, "Here."

"Oh," Sam said, taking the lube and staring down at it like it held the secrets to the universe.  Then he looked up at Dean.  "You... um..." he colored slightly.  "Do you want...?"

Yes, Dean thought, I want, but what if Sam wasn't thinking he wanted what he wanted.  "I was hoping you would go inside me," Dean said in a rush, somehow making it all sound like one word.

"Oh."  Sam stared at Dean for several moments, then finally nodded.  "Okay.  I haven't... done that before, so, um, we'll have to take this slow I guess."  Then he reached for Dean and pulled him close enough to kiss.  Sam's lips were warm, a little firm, but he opened his mouth a moment later, and there was tongue, which was very, very nice.

Slow was fine with Dean, he was still floored that they were trying it at all.  Sammy had been very good to him the past week as he’d been trying to recover from his several month drinking binge.  It had been hard too, and Dean knew it.  He’d gone from one extreme to the next wanting to drink constantly, yelling at Sammy one moment and sobbing all over him the next.  Now though, now he was kissing him and it felt so good.  Dean thought even if the sex didn’t work out maybe he could make do with the kisses, and then taking care of the rest on his own.

When the kiss ended he said softly, “You should probably stretch me first, I’ve never actually had a person in there before.”  He’d experimented with a few properly shaped items, but he’d never had the nerve to pretend some random guy was Sammy.  The idea felt too wrong.

"Right," Sammy said, a hand trailing down Dean's chest, fingers flicking across a nipple.  "Yeah, that makes sense.  You're not..." his lips quirked up at the edges.  "You're not that kind, are you Dean?"

“No,” Dean actually did see the humor in that.  He would fuck all the women in the world, because he went into it with clear lines.  He wanted sex, they wanted sex, done.  That was okay, but he wouldn’t use someone by pretending they were someone else.  For him that was totally immoral, where sleeping around was good clean fun.  

Sam brought his other hand down and let his fingers gently stroke skin.  "You know, I've always admired that about you Dean.  The clear lines, the way you don't hesitate.  Sexually, I mean.  Sometimes," he gently pushed Dean back on the bed.  "I wish I could be like that."

“Mm,” Dean loved the way it felt to have Sammy’s hands on him, touching him so firmly.  “You’re different because you don’t know what you want, that’s all.”  It had always been obvious to him.  Sammy went from sex to relationship, trying to make the two mesh one minute then trying to disentangle them the next.  He wanted something lasting but he would settle for something less, then he would get upset.  “You can’t have clear lines if you don’t define what you want and stick to it.”

"I know what I want," Sammy said, frowning and then ducking his head down to kiss a line from Dean's neck to his chest.  "Don't I?"

Entangling his fingers in Sammy's hair Dean sighed.  "Do you?  That feels so good, Sammy."

"Yeah?" Sam whispered against Dean's flesh, finally reaching a nipple and kissing it.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, wondering if Sam was getting anything much out of it at all.  He didn’t think that Sam would be able to fuck him though, if he wasn’t at least getting something from it.  Unless he was thinking of someone else.  “You’re thinking of me while we’re doing this, right?”

Sam paused, then he looked up at Dean.  "Are you fucking kidding me Dean?" he asked, glaring.

“What?”  Was he being way too insecure?  Yeah, probably.  “Sorry.”

"I mean, if you want me to go away, I'll go, but I'm here, and we're doing this, and all I'm thinking about is you."  The glare didn't lessen a single bit.

“No!  I don’t want you to go away.”  If he did Dean wasn’t sure he could handle it.  “Don’t mess with me, Sammy.  You know I don’t.”

"Then stop thinking I'm thinking about someone else."  He kissed Dean again and then pulled away to look him in the eyes.  "Because I would never do that for anyone.  If it doesn't work, I'll tell you, I won't fake it, that wouldn't be right to you."

“Yeah… thanks Sammy,” of course he wouldn’t do that.  It wasn’t the sort of lie either one of them would tell and he shouldn’t have brought it up.  He still felt better though, having it said.

"Good," Sam said, returning to the nipple.  "Now stop worrying and pay attention to me."

“Oh I am,” it would be hard not to, “believe me, you have my attention.”

Sam sucked the nipple into his mouth a few times, then began lightly pinching the other one.  "Good.  I'm supposed to.  Here I am, touching you, kissing you, and you think I might possibly not be focused on you.  That's just... wrong."

"I said sorry, bitch," Dean said, annoyed they were still talking about it.  Sammy's fingers felt so good, he wanted to be done with the argument already.

"Jerk," Sam said, and Dean could feel his smile as Sammy lightly bit the nipple.  Then he pulled away enough to run his hands down Dean's body, fingers trailing across his hips.

Dean propped himself up enough to look down his body at Sammy, his eyes taking in that body he wanted so much.  He couldn’t believe this was still happening, Sammy was in bed with him, thinking of no one else, touching him and possibly even fucking him.  Unbelievable.

"You have to tell me if I hurt you, alright?" Sam said, fingers lightly brushing across Dean's dick.  "Because, you know, I don't want you to force yourself cause you're scared this won't happen again."

Dean nodded, "I'll tell you," he agreed.  He would, too, if it hurt enough to mention.  He was scared it might never happen again, but he wasn't going to let that keep him from enjoying this time.

Nodding, Sam took a deep breath, and then grabbed the lube.  He opened the top, and squirted some onto his fingers, his other hand reaching down to touch Dean's hole.  Licking his lips somewhat nervously, he brought the lube covered fingers down next.

Dean relaxed back and bent his knees to give Sam better access.  The times he had touched himself it had been an awkward, sticky mess, but it had felt good.  When Sam’s finger pressed in though he knew this was totally different and better, much better.

"Yeah," Sammy said, breathing the word out gently.  "That's right Dean."  He pressed in, turned the finger a little, the pulled out a bit.  "Damn, you're tight."

“‘Course I am,” Dean said, but he tried to relax a bit then.  Sammy would have to fit inside him.  He moaned at the thought and had to relax all over again.  Sammy was going to be inside of him.

Shaking his head, Sam eased the finger in and out a few more times.  "What are you thinking of up there that's got you clenching at me so hard Dean?"

“Just you…” Dean replied and tried to relax again, because… no, it was better not to think of why, just relax.

"Shit Dean," Sam pulled the finger part way out and then added a second one.  "You're... you know, you're really amazing."  He moved his hand again and again, stretching out Dean, scissoring the fingers inside him.

Dean didn’t want to think about what was so amazing about his ass.  It seemed like an odd thing for Sammy to take that tone about but he sure wasn’t going to complain since he desperately wanted Sam deep inside the ass he was admiring.  His eyes fell closed as the sensations of Sam stretching him coursed through him and drove him slightly mad.  It felt so damn good.  “Want you, Sammy,” he found himself babbling after a time, “want you inside me.”

"I don't think..." Sam whispered, then he added a third finger.  "You're stretched enough."  He moved those around a while, then began pulling them out.  "You think you're ready?"

“Yeah, Sammy, I think so,” Dean said, even though he had no idea.  What he did know was that Sammy’s fingers made him want Sammy more than ever.  He didn’t want to wait anymore at all.

The lube was opened again, and then Sam was between Dean's legs, and Dean could feel how hard Sammy was.  "Okay," he whispered, his dick pressed against Dean.  "Here I come."  Then he slowly began sliding inside.

“Oh!”  Sammy was bigger than fingers, of course and so much more solid and he filled Dean so completely, bringing tears to his eyes.  “Yeah Sammy, that’s good.”  It hurt but it wasn’t a bad sort of hurt.

"Dean?" Sammy whispered, pausing.  "You okay?"  Fingers wrapped around Dean's dick then, and began stroking it.

Dean felt his ass clench as the sensations of Sammy holding his dick flooded him.  “Yeah, very okay.”

"Right, okay," Sam said, then he was pressing in again, groaning as his hand spasmed on Dean's dick.  "God Dean," he moaned.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, "Yeah, Sammy," he pressed towards his brother, inviting him further in.  It made him feel so good to be overwhelmed like this by Sammy.

"Deeeean," Sam gasped as his hips touched Dean's.  "God, so tight."  He was deep, so deep inside Dean.

“Mhm,” Dean agreed.  His little brother fit inside him perfectly.  He hit all the right spots making Dean want him to just stay right there, moving a little of course.  He went ahead and made the movement happen rocking away and back, then gasping at the sensations he caused.

"Shit!" Sam gasped, then he was moving himself, one hand holding Dean's waist, the other stroking, sort of, in time to his thrusts.  "Yeah, yeah Dean, god, so good."

For a while it was just their bodies coming together, such wonderful sensations that Dean gasped and moaned, then he was screaming, “Sammy, oh yeah Sammy!”  Then he was just plain screaming as he came more intensely than ever before.  It was fucking amazing.

"Fuck, fuck Dean, fuck!" Sammy was saying as Dean came, and then he was pounding a little harder, a little deeper before coming himself, hard and fast, so deep inside Dean.

Then Dean pulled him down into his arms, holding Sammy tight against his body.  That had been exactly what he’d needed and he’d needed it so long that getting it was like something snapping, it felt so good it hurt.  “Yeah Sammy,” he whispered, “that was so good, so fucking good.”

"Dean," Sam moaned, pressing his face into Dean's chest.  "Dean.  God Dean."  His arms wrapped around Dean and he held on tightly, body shaking.

Dean ran a hand up and down Sammy’s back for a while, then he started rubbing it in circles, “You okay,” he asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, nodding his head and taking a deep breath.  "Just... a little more overwhelming than I thought it'd be."

“Oh,” so that hadn’t just been on his side.  Dean continued rubbing Sammy’s back gently then, giving him time to recover.  It had been amazing, but he’d always known sex with Sammy would be.

"Dean?" Sammy said finally, tilting his head up to look at Dean.

“Yeah?”  Dean tried to brace himself for just about anything, although he knew some things he just couldn’t prepare for.  Hopefully this wasn’t one of those.

"I think you should go to college."  Sammy was looking right into Dean's eyes as he said it.

Okay, he hadn’t even thought to try to prepare for that.  He tried stalling since he had no idea how to respond.  “What?”

"College.  I think you should go to college.  For art, you're actually," Sammy laughed, glancing at the sketchpads.  "Really good."

“Nah,” his eyes drifted to the same sketch pads, “I can only draw one person Sammy, besides that… I don’t even know if I can do that sober.”

"You don't start out good Dean, you become good."  Sammy took a deep breath and he looked back at Dean.  "Look, I'm going to go to a state college, and you're going to go for art, and we'll..." he trailed off.  "We'll dorm together, or live together, or whatever.  We'll be together.  Okay?"

Dean felt the moment when his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets they got so wide.  “You’re going to Stanford.  I… what?  You can’t just ditch it after how hard you worked to get there, right?”

"I'm not "just ditching it" Dean," Sammy said, shaking his head.  "I just... you can't go to Stanford.  So, it's a middle ground."

“A middle ground?”  They would dorm together, or live together, or whatever?  Dean stopped to digest the rest of that and turn it over in his mind.  “Together, together?”  Did Sammy mean to continue this sort of relationship with him?

"We're giving it a try, right?" Sammy asked, brows furrowing.  "I mean, you didn't think one time having sex was going to be enough.  So, this gives us a chance to.... you know?  See what it's like."

Dean had thought exactly that, that Sammy would know after one time whether or not he wanted more.  In fact he still thought it was a pretty good test.  “I’m not really sure what we’re trying,” Dean admitted, “I mean we’ve lived together before and now we’ve had sex so… we still don’t know if it’s right because we need to try doing those things some more?”

"Dean, we've tried living together as brothers, not as lovers," Sammy said, rolling his eyes.  "There's a difference, you know?"

Dean considered that.  He supposed it was true, but his feelings for Sammy were the same as they had been when they’d lived together last.  It was the things he thought of as possible that had changed.  “You want to live together as lovers.  I mean to try that part of this?”  It was hard to absorb that Sammy was going to give him that chance.  Shouldn’t he just say yes before Sammy changed his mind?

"You think we can't do it?" Sammy asked, frowning.  "Well, maybe not, but... I just... you know?"

“No, I… fuck.”  Dean pulled his brother to him and kissed him.  “Are you messing with me?”  He asked after the kiss, “You, if you want me with you, if you’ll be with me then yeah, state college or whatever.  As long as we can be together I’m in.”

"I'm not messing with you Dean," Sammy said, kissing him back.  "You have to go to college too though.  I don't want..." he trailed off and took a deep breath.  "I don't want you to become Dad."

“Become Dad how?  Be a hunter?  Help people?”  Dean knew that everything about their father wasn’t good, but he did do good things.

"Not that shit Dean," Sammy sighed, rolling his eyes.  "I mean the drinking, being distant and hurting yourself thing."

“I won’t drink like that if I’m with you, Sammy.  I’m not doing that anymore but if you want me in college, and they’ll take me,” Dean shrugged.  He didn’t get the impression many art majors got good jobs or anything, but he wouldn’t mind going.  “I’ll go, if that makes you happy.”

"Yeah," Sammy smiled, face lighting up.  "It would make me very, very happy."

Dean shrugged, “Sure.”  Sammy being happy was always important to him if he could do it.  He loved seeing his little brother smile.  When they were kids he’d done all kinds of crazy things for that smile and he suspected if they were going to be together he’d be doing a lot more.  Somehow that made him happy.

"Good."  Sammy put his head back down on Dean's shoulder and he took a deep breath.  "I'll try not to eat all the Lucky Charms."

Dean laughed softly, “If you do, I’ll just buy more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I am considering writing a sequel. If you're interested please comment so I know if people will actually read it or not. It will help me decide whether to write it. :)


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